Illusions
by Summer Orchid
Summary: Four years after Voldemort is defeated and his heir has risen to take his place. No one could have anticipated the depths of the evil that had lain unseen in him. After unimaginable horrors, Hermione must discover his true heart and repair the damage.
1. Red Bird

A.N. 08-29-2013 After not working for this story for a ridiculous amount of time (cough-a year-cough), things were bound to change right? Now that I have planned up to the end of the story, I decided to go back and add something interesting ^^. There isn't anything to the plot that is necessarily changed, just a different element added. Yay!

A special thanks to Mistwood (formerly Pontus-x) for all of her help when I first started writing this fic. She is amazing and was a great help. Be sure to check out her stories! Her current fic is fantastic ;).

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><p>Chapter One<p>

The screams coming from the cell down the hall were like music to his ears. It had been nearly a week since the sound had graced Draco's dungeons and he was glad to finally have a respite from his recent bout of boredom. A couple of Muggles had been caught hiking too close to the Death Eaters' hideout and he didn't mind their little stumble into danger one bit. He was tired of dealing with the slew of blood traitors and deserters he had to dispose of lately. They were entirely too boring with their sniveling. No matter how much he detested their blood status; Draco always enjoyed the challenge of dealing with Muggles. They were too ignorant to be anything but brave.

Draco entered the cell and stuck to the shadows so that he could observe without being seen. He sneered down at the couple lying in a disgraceful heap against the back wall. The woman was sobbing uncontrollably and clinging to the hand of her husband, but his eyes were drawn to the glint off of the rings on their fingers and the man's attempt to soothe his hysterical wife. The pathetic display revolted him and intrigued him at the same time. Such a show of affection _should have_ made him take pity on them and kill them quickly, but unfortunately for them, Draco only saw how it would work to his advantage.

Stepping out of the shadows, Draco dismissed the cloaked and masked Death Eater torturing them with a firm jerk of his head. Despite his lack of disguise, the couple seemed to recognize that he was no improvement to their current situation. As he stepped forward, the man dragged himself up and drew his wife to him as he glared up at Draco; the kind of glare that promised violence. Draco chuckled darkly and wondered at the man's audacity. Surely the man knew there was nothing he could do to stop him.

Draco smirked nastily at the husband and drew his wand. Since it was painfully obvious that the couple desired to stay together, he decided to be gracious. With a non-verbal spell and a small flick of his wand the couple was standing bound together, chest to chest and face to face. The young woman whimpered and hid her face in her husband's neck. _Let them have their comfort. They will only make this last longer._ Draco shrugged internally_. Not that I am complaining._

Both husband and wife were shaking with terror, despite the furious glare coming from the man, and their open display of weakness disappointed him. With a small shake of his head Draco turned his wand on the man and got to work.

"Crucio."

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><p>Draco sat back in his chair with a sigh when he reached his private study. For a while he just sat there with his hands resting on his lap as he contemplated the blood staining his hands. He did not know how long he had worked on them, but they had been stubborn and refused to break. The woman had surprised him with her strength. Even witnessing the death of her husband had not been enough to break her. But they all break in the end.<p>

Stooping to open the bottom drawer of his desk, Draco sighed again as he retrieved his black marble pensieve. Somehow, this latest session had not been enough. This had been happening more and more lately. The prisoners, Muggle or blood traitor, were never strong enough and no matter how he tried to draw it out, Draco was leaving his sessions feeling slightly...unsatisfied. Draco shook his head as he began sifting the memory of the torture session in to a conjured vial.

He was getting tired of the constant killing. He remembered when he had been so eager to kill, to prove his strength. But now, after six years, the killing no longer appealed to him. It was merely a chore that he had to perform as a leader. He secretly hoped that when he won this war, the resistance would give up so that he could live in peace. After all, this was a war of ideals and he had no real use for genocide. Everyone had their place in the world and it was time to restore the balance.

Draco moved over to a large shelf behind his desk, placed the vial on the shelf, and began searching through the items for another memory. He was feeling oddly sentimental, so he decided that a trip to the beginning would calm his nerves. The plain looking vial had been shoved in the back, dusty corner, and yet it was the most important. It held his very identity.

Draco poured the memory into the pensieve and all but threw himself in out of barely restrained eagerness. When he oriented himself, he was in the middle of the scene of one of his greatest failures. Dumbledore had been one of the greatest wizards of all time, but he had weathered too much. Draco believed that at the time of his death at the end of Snape's wand, Dumbledore had faded to a mere shadow of his former strength. Even with that weakness, Draco had not been able to defeat him. He knew it was strange that he glorified that failure, but it was in that moment that he decided to become the man he was now.

The true significance of that night was hidden inside the heart of a sixteen-year-old boy. A boy known only as the son of one of Voldemort's most trusted. A mere carbon copy of his father. Before that night on the astronomy tower, Draco was nothing but a child and hardly deserving of his surname. However, when Dumbledore's lifeless body fell, he had stepped out of his father's shadow. That was the night, as far as he was concerned, that Draco Malfoy was born. Although at first, he had been singled out for his weakness, Draco turned it into strength. It was a moment he vowed never to repeat, motivation to become even greater than his father who was burdened by his failures and let them hold him back.

Draco's chest swelled with pride. True to the promise he mad to himself, now he had even surpassed Voldemort. It was proof of pureblood superiority. He had always questioned why Voldemort was allowed to lead that first movement when he was only a tainted half-blood. Never again would anyone think, or dare to bring up the weaknesses and failures of his past. He had surpassed his father, had outlived Voldemort, and he had shown the wizarding world the true power and might of a true Dark Lord.

Sometimes Draco wished he still had the passion for the cause that he had at sixteen. After he had proven himself, there seemed nothing else for Draco to do. He was empty and he couldn't bring himself to care anymore. There were too few mountains to clime and not enough achievements left to claim.

When the memory ended, Draco found his agitation had greatly improved, but there was nagging ache budding behind his eyes. Draco pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned back. Viewing this memory _never_ failed to give him a migraine. He supposed it was because it was filled with so many emotions. It came from a time when he was still capable of feeling such things and maybe re-visiting them just overwhelmed him.

Draco's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his study door being jerked open. He slowly sat up straight in his chair and turned his glare on the masked Death Eater that had barged into his private study. When Draco made no further move to acknowledge him, the Death Eater cleared his throat and began to shift from foot to foot, making his impatience known. Draco resisted the urge to roll his eyes and hex the man into oblivion. His headache was growing in intensity and he simply didn't have the energy.

After a few more moments of uncomfortable silence, Draco finally addressed him.

"Is there any particular reason you would like to be killed for coming in here without my permission? Has no one taught you that it is polite to knock?" The man stiffened a bit at the cold tone in Draco's voice, but it did not deter him for long.

"My Lord, there is a situation."

Draco narrowed his eyes dangerously.

"What kind of situation?"

"The men on patrol found someone snooping around the edge of the compound. She was captured, but her presence might…cause problems."

"And why, pray tell, is that?" Draco was tired of the man's obtuse report. His head was splitting and speaking spent splinters of pain through his skull.

"M-my Lord. They have captured Hermione Granger."

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><p>Hermione knew she had been careless. As soon as she heard the rumors about the Death Eaters hideout, she had wanted to scope it out for herself. Normally, she wouldn't have entertained the thought, but the fact that they were so close to her students disturbed her greatly. The new regime under Malfoy had become a more terrifying entity than it had been under Voldemort. She had to do something. If she could just get close enough to confirm their location, it would be easy to bring Harry and the Aurors down on the Death Eaters' heads.<p>

She and Neville, Professor of Herbology, had taken their seventh year students on a trip to Germany to forage for some rather rare herbs and plants that could be used for healing. As the Professor of the Healing Arts at Hogwarts, she saw it as her duty to protect her students. So a few hours after midnight, after setting numerous protection and concealment wards and charms over the campsite, she found herself setting off into the night. Just to be safe, as she left she left cast another spell that would wake Neville should she not return in a few hours. When the spell woke him, a letter would appear explaining everything and gave specific instructions to inform Harry and Ron about Malfoy's location. If she didn't come back in a few hours, there could be no other explanation for her disappearance.

Seeing that it was merely a scouting mission, Hermione hadn't seen it necessary to protect herself with anything other than concealment and silencing charms. Part of her expected the rumors to be just what they were: whispered fears that held no actual truth. However, the disappearance of a Muggle couple in the area the day before yesterday had increased her concern. According to the Muggle police, they had wandered off of the trail and vanished into the forest. Such a thing was not uncommon, but it would have been unwise to ignore it.

Not very far away from their campsite, she found the crime scene markers where the last footprints had been found. Their tracks were mostly straight and clearly marked, with signs about every ten or so meters, with beautiful trees rising up on either side. The tall, stately birch trees seemed to glow in the moonlight. Beyond them, the forest became dense with undergrowth that faded into gigantic fir trees. Here and there, the branches of a juniper tree would hang over the path. The effect was quite surreal.

Anyone with eyes would have been enthralled by the trail, and there was nothing that looked suspicious or interesting to either side. When she had met with the Muggle detectives earlier that day, they had shown her the point where their tracks had left the trail. She had passed that point by about 50 meters, and she could not see what had pulled them away. With a dejected sigh, Hermione sat down on the trail, facing the forest at the Muggles' entry point.

Hermione stared as the moonlight shifted the shadows from the trees and listened to the wind rustling the leaves. There was something magical about the forest; too many people took that for granted. She sat back and listened to the forest as she tried to formulate a plan.

Out of the forest, a new sound drew her out of her thoughts. It was the sound of a songbird. The song it sang was sad and sweet and tugged at her heart. Hermione scanned the forest in front of her, curious as to what was making the music, for it seemed that such a song had to come from a magical creature. A flash of red brought her attention to a bird that landed on a branch right across from her. The bird stared at her and fluttered its wings, never ceasing its song.

Whether it was the music or the bird itself that did it, Hermione would never be able to say, but she felt drawn into the forest. Unknowingly, she followed the bird in a trance. She could not say in which direction she travelled, nor could she say that she really took notice of the change of the forest from the silver birch trees to the firs that now surrounded her.

The trance did not break until Hermione found herself in a clearing. There was something in the air, a faint rippling. It was almost magical. The bird came and flew around her head, then towards the center of the clearing. Still in a daze, she moved toward a white stone in the middle. It was smooth on top and glittered in the moonlight. Her attention turned to the bird, which now stared at her from the rock. A shiver ran down her spine as she remembered an old Muggle story that her mother used to tell her before bed when she was very little. It was a horrible story. In it, the wicked stepmother killed her stepson for his inheritance and buried his bones under a Juniper tree after serving his flesh to his father in a stew. The boy was reborn into a red bird and for revenge dropped a millstone on his stepmother, regaining his human life.

Repulsed by the bird on the stone, Hermione backed away and into the safety of the trees. She knew it was silly, but the resemblances to the story shook her a little. Realizing that she had strayed far from the trail, she thought with a mental sneer that perhaps the Muggles had been drawn off-course in much the same way. If so, it was a very sick plot to lure people away. It was just devious enough to be a Death Eater plot, but with their blood-status prejudices, she doubted they would lower themselves to using the details of a Muggle story as a trap.

Hermione smiled to herself. It was rather silly that let her imagination run ahead of her. Looking closely at the stone, she noticed that there were small markings carved into the edge, but she couldn't make them out from where she stood. As she walked closer, the bird made a happy trill and bounced in place. The markings looked like runes and as she reached out to touch them a small feeling of dread bloomed in her gut. Ignoring it she touched one of the runes. The horrible tugging sensation signaled her mistake. The stone must have been port key and she tried to swallow down the panic when she was tossed down into the snow.

There was no sound. There were no animals scurrying around in the underbrush. She felt utterly alone, completely vulnerable. When she heard several crack of apparition Hermione scrambled to a standing position, wand at the ready, but she was too late. The hex hit her full on the chest and she didn't had time to block it. She barely had time to register the pain. The world faded slowly around her.

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><p>A.N. So how was it? I promise, promise, promise there is a reason for Draco's behavior. I know he is terrible, but you will just have to trust me.<p>

xoxox

Summer Orchid


	2. Encounters

A.N. Ok so here we are! For all of my old readers, this is new! Please try to contain your excitement ;). For new readers, well all of this has been new. Thank you soooo much to all of you who put this story of your favorites and story alert! And a special thanks to those of you who took the time to review! I love all of you.

Lets move on to the story shall we?

08-29-2013 New and improved!

Disclaimer: Everything recognized does not belong to me.

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><p>The first thing Hermione registered as she fought to pull her mind from the fog was the stiffness in her arms and legs. She tried to move to relieve some of the pressure and felt her heart lurch. She couldn't move. Hermione wracked her mind and tried to sort through her disjointed memories. <em>Breathe Hermione, no sense in flipping out now. The last thing I remember was<em>...and then everything flooded back. The panic won and she strained against the ropes, tearing the skin around her wrists and ankles until her strength ran out.

She sagged onto the cold floor and forced back the tears that that were pricking the back of her eyes. Hermione was so angry with herself. There was no one else to blame.

Hermione shoved down the bitterness and tried to school her breathing. _There has to be a way out of this. I'll be fine as long as they don't take me to...him. _Collecting herself, Hermione began to formulate a plan. She was wand-less, but being a Muggle-born had its advantages. She did not need a wand to fight.

She had just decided on a course of action when the door to her cell was thrown open. Hermione hid her surprise and struggled to drag herself into a sitting position. Her pride refused to let her face whoever came through that door lying down.

It seemed that she waited for an eternity for someone to come through the door. Her plan ran through her head again and she tensed ready to make her move. But when she saw the man that walked through the door all of her hopes flew out of the proverbial window.

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><p>Draco took his sweet time making his way to her cell. He was looking forward to lording his position over her. It was nothing less than she deserved after how she treated everyone in school when she was a prefect; most especially after how she treated him.<p>

The first thing that greeted Draco as he sauntered towards her was the most defiant and haughty glare of one Hermione Granger. Draco laughed, really laughed. He really hadn't expected her to change too much over the years, but the look she gave him was classic Granger. For a moment he expected her to deduct points from Slytherin. It was just like the old days. And then she opened her mouth.

"Malfoy, you area a sick piece of work. What do you want with me? I don't remember you ever lacking in intelligence, but you really must know that you will get no information from me. What..." Draco silenced her with an impatient flick of his wand and a non-verbal spell.

"Would you shut up woman." Granger cocked her head at him indignantly. Draco knew she was calling him all sorts of nasty names and probably imagining ways to hex him in her head. He shook his head slightly as he moved slowly towards her. The girl never ceased to amuse him.

"Granger, Granger, Granger," he chided softly. "I never expected you to grace our halls. I did hope, but I was sure that you would be _intelligent_ enough to stay away." Draco sent her a patronizing smirk. Granger returned the sentiment and spit at his feet. Draco's sneer morphed into a look of disgust as he gracefully sidestepped.

"Now, now. How very unladylike of you." Draco schooled his features to his mask of general indifference. "Your behavior disappoints me, but what more could I expect from filthy Mudblood scum." Granger's face was nearly purple and she was shouting at him despite the silencing spell. "I will lift the spell but you will speak at a civilized volume. Agreed?" Draco released her with another slight flick of his wand.

"Malfoy. What is it that you want?" Draco scoffed at her.

"My God Granger. You really do have a one track mind." Granger narrowed her eyes and sent him another fiery glare.

"No. I just don't have the patience to sit here and argue with you. You know that I won't tell you anything. What. Do. You. Want." Granger spoke as if she were spelling out a very hard concept to a child and Draco chuckled mirthlessly.

"Oh my dear girl, you have no idea what you are in for. Do you remember that night with my aunt? You were so brave then, but your courage will do you no good. Bellatrix," he hissed out her name as if it were a curse, "was severely lacking in creativity. She was reckless and impatient." Draco took a step closer to her and leaned menacingly.

"When I am done with you, you won't remember what it felt like to have courage." When he saw the rage in her eyes falter slightly Draco smirked in triumph.

"Well Granger, since you've been sitting behind the desk a little too long, teaching _healing _why don't we start this slowly?" He spit out the subject with contempt. It really did amuse him that the brain of Potter's operations had settled to teaching snot nosed children at Hogwarts. He raised his wand and began.

"Crucio."

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><p>Pain.<p>

Pain seemed to be all that her battered body was capable of feeling. They had been at it for days and the curses Malfoy had thrown at her were stronger than anything she had felt before. A few of them she had found herself on the wrong end of during the second war, but these felt so much worse. She knew that curses like these fed off of the caster's intent and she knew that Malfoy hated her. He had made that perfectly clear during their years of school. But this. This was too much. Even Draco Malfoy didn't deserve to become this monster. No one's soul should be this tainted.

Through the hazy sheen that had slid over her exhausted mind, Hermione thought of her students in Slytherin when she first started teaching. They were just like he had been as a student. They were malicious to be sure, but they could be faulted only for ignorance. As their professor she had tried to break down the prejudices and show them that her blood meant nothing, affected nothing. There had been no one like this for Malfoy and he had embraced the beliefs of the Dark with a zeal that was terrifying.

Not able to withstand the pain any longer, Hermione's mind slipped into unconsciousness.

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><p>Draco resisted the immature urge to storm out of the room. He began to pace the small cell and silently cursed the woman at his feet. He had forgotten just how inferior she could make him feel. Her stubbornness was driving him absolutely insane. Honestly, it wasn't as if he hadn't expected this, but that didn't make it any less frustrating.<p>

Ceasing his pacing, Draco sneered down at her crumpled form one last time before striding angrily to his study. He knew that one of the books on ancient Dark magic he had rescued from the Manor before the Ministry raid would hold the secret to breaking Hermione. Grabbing a few books from his extensive library, Draco stalked over to his desk and poured over the texts.

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><p>Hermione was ripped from the sanctuary of her unconsciousness by the brute force of yet another curse. The power of it seized her body and sent chilling waves of pain down every inch of her. So far he had not gotten any information from her and for that, she was proud. However, Hermione did not know how much longer her body could endure the strain. Granted, many of the hexes and curses Malfoy threw at her had somehow been modified to slowly repair the damaged tissue, but the constant wear and tear from the physical and mental assault was becoming too much for her to bear. Hermione swore she would never give in and allow him access to his mind. There was too much at risk for the ones she loved. Besides, she knew that he would show no mercy even if she gave him what he wanted. <em>Why has no one come for me<em>, Hermione thought with despair. _Surely by now Neville had gotten in contact with Harry after I disappeared from the campsite._

After what seemed an eternity, the pain left her and Draco stepped into her line of sight.

"Alright Mudblood, we have been at this for far too long. No one has come for you and no one will. They will never find this place even if they wanted too. Somehow, I feel as if a _professor_ is not valuable enough to stage a full scale assault; even if you are Potter's little mobile library. How long has it been since he has even turned to you for help?"

Hermione tried to stop the tears that were stabbing at the back of her eyes. She had not spoken to Harry in about a year, but she knew he was busy trying to track Malfoy and his gang down. Still, it had always stung a bit when she had separated from Harry and Ron when they chose to be Aurors and she decided to go back to finish her education at Hogwarts. The second war against Voldemort had been over so she had not seen it necessary to join them.

Draco laughed mockingly. Her silence was answer enough. "So are you ready to give in?"

"Never," she choked out. No matter how upset she was with Harry and Ron, she would never betray them.

"So be it," Draco growled and raised his wand again. All of his research yesterday had provided him with a particularly nasty curse that should achieve his goals spectacularly. Granted, the curse would probably kill her, but not before he had what he wanted. Draco drew a breath, but the words died in his throat. Something in the back of his mind rebelled against him and prevented him from casting the curse. Draco attempted to throw up his mental walls to defend himself, but he could not block out the invading consciousness. _  
><em>

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><p>Hermione slowly opened her eyes and peeked out from under her lashes at Malfoy. She had been braced for a new round, but when nothing had happened she had begun to wonder if he was still even there. Sometimes he moved too quietly for her comfort. Not that anything about him was all that comforting to begin with.<p>

What she saw made her jaw drop. Draco Malfoy was just standing there, wand raised and poised to strike, but his face was a mask of confusion and some other emotion she just couldn't place. It was quite possibly the first time during her captivity that she had seen any emotion other than rage or that infuriating calm show on his face. Hermione watched, astonished, as his face slowly shifted from confusion into a terrifyingly murderous glare. Without a single word, Malfoy spun sharply and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

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><p>Draco forced his hand through his hair and furiously paced the length of his study. He was still struggling to regain control and force the other consciousness out of his mind. Now that he was away from Granger, it had faded into barely a whisper caressing the edges of his mind, but it was there nonetheless. The sensation was odd. The "other" presence had a strange feel of familiarity and easily meshed into his own consciousness if he was not careful. This kind of failure was something Draco rarely experienced. Once he had mastered Occlumency, no one had ever been able to penetrate his mind, with the exception of his father.<p>

He growled in frustration. Every muscle fiber had been invested in casting the curse and yet, the "other" was able to stop him. He could not allow this weakness and was so irritated he had to fight the instinct to just kill her and get it over with. Sensing his growing resolve to destroy the woman, the "other" reared up again and tried to force back his thoughts of cursing her. Draco fought, but to no avail.

And just like that, he knew what he had to do.

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><p>Hermione didn't look up as she heard the door swing open, hinges squealing in protest. She didn't have the energy to care. Her body had started to go numb and Hermione knew that whatever he had come to do, she probably wouldn't live through it. She would not beg for mercy. So Hermione settled back, closed her eyes, and emptied her mind of thoughts of her friends. If she allowed herself to despair, it would almost certainly show on her face and she would not give Malfoy any such satisfaction.<p>

Malfoy stalked into the room and stopped in the center. He made no move to curse her. Instead he just stood there glowering down at her. Accepting that this was just another strange torture she raised her head to meet his look and returned it with a defiant glare. She would face whatever waited for her with all of the pride and audacity that had earned her a place in Gryffindor many years ago.

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><p>Her fierce glare ripped Draco out of his thoughts and he sneered down at the woman. Draco begrudgingly wondered at her strength to be able to give him such a look when he could so clearly see the panic hidden beneath her arrogant glare. A large part of him still wanted to just hex her into oblivion; information be damned. But he couldn't. Draco could not shake the feeling that something was wrong, any more than he could kill the infuriating woman in front of him. Trying to kill Granger had brought the "other" and he was curious, and more than a little scared by it, even though he would never admit that to anyone, let alone himself. In his mind it was she who was responsible for this presence in his mind. Part of this was to save his pride. It stung less if there was only one person who could best him, even if that person was of inferior blood status. The thought of another person out there strong enough to penetrate his mental defenses was a possibility that he did not allow himself to entertain.<p>

Before he could talk himself out of it, Draco strode quickly over to her and jerked her up into a standing position. A look of shock barely had time to flit across her face before it was replaced by a grimace of pain as she lost consciousness. Draco cursed under his breath as he scooped her up into his arms. Her body had been in worse shape than he had anticipated. The plan he had so carefully constructed over the past couple of hours would fail if she could not move on her own.

When he entered the study Draco set Granger on his couch before he moved to his rather large potions cabinet behind his desk. He always made sure to keep as many healing and counter potions around as possible. His work wasn't exactly a walk in the park and he never knew when they would prove useful. Removing the necessary bottles, Draco walked back to the couch, knelt beside Granger's head. If not for the sound of her shallow, raspy breaths, he would have thought that she was already dead. Her skin was ashy and she was terrifyingly still.

Draco placed the bottles on the floor beside him and selected a deep blue vial. He poured small amounts into her mouth, coaxing her to swallow by rubbing her throat, until she had consumed the entire bottle. It did not take long for her breathing to steady and the color started to leak back into her slowly relaxing features. After several more potions Draco finished up with a few muttered spells and a pepper-up potion. The latter did not take very long to start working and soon Hermione was blinking her eyes open. She sluggishly surveyed her surroundings in confusion and then met his eyes as if she wasn't sure who he was for a moment. When she realized what was going on and she gasped and pulled away from him, a look of fear and apprehension plastered on her face.

"W-what...why...ho," she sputtered, unable to fully comprehend the situation.

Draco cut her off harshly. "Hush, Granger. We don't have time for this."

She shut her mouth and struggled to gain composure. Seated on the couch, she turned her attention to her clenched fists in her lap and waited for him to explain.

"We don't have much time. It won't be long before they notice that you are gone and when they do, they will come after us both. I need..."

"Why are you doing this?" Draco suppressed the urge to curse. He would like very much to have an answer to that question as well. He opened his mouth to snap at her again, but just before he had the chance, Draco felt the unmistakable pressure of someone trying to gain entrance to his mind. The strength of the assault on his mental protections staggered him. Unlike the neutral presence of the "other" that had sneaked up on him, this consciousness was dark and vile and was ripping through his barriers with malice. Draco collapsed on the floor and held his head in agony. He could not suppress the groan that forced its way from his lips. There was no way he would be able to withstand this attack for long.

Right as another wave of searing heat washed over him, Draco heard the sound that he had been dreading; the sound of sirens. Someone had raised the alarm.

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><p>A.N. Alright then, what did you think? Did you like it? Do you have concerns? Review! :)<p>

Thank you once again to Mistwood (was Pontus-x) for the Beta work the first time round! You are wonderful!

Until next time,

Summer Orchid


	3. Twists of Fate

A.N. Holy cow! I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw how many people put this story on alert/favorites! I think I had the silliest grin on my face for hours! You guys are so awesome! All of you are amazing! Thank you so much for reading, reviewing, and adding!

08-29-2013 Not much has changed, just a few things here and there.

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><p>For a moment Hermione could do nothing but stare. One second Malfoy had been glaring daggers at her and the next he was on the floor clutching at his head. Her head was spinning and the screeching sound of the compound alarms certainly didn't help. All of her thoughts and feelings that had built up over the past Godric knew how many days were crowding in. Her eyes darted from Malfoy's wand laying on the ground a foot away and then back to Malfoy himself. He was groaning and she noticed his skin had taken a deathly pallor, not that she particularly cared. <em><br>_

She lunged for his wand and was about to make a break for it when she heard a particularly strangled sound coming from the man on the floor behind her. Hermione nearly cursed and knelt down beside Malfoy. She couldn't leave him. There had been something in his eyes the last time he had entered her cell. Something off. If she didn't know him any better she would say he looked frightened.

Surely she had been seeing things from the pain. Hermione had to resist the urge to pinch herself. Something told her that there was more to the situation than she had seen. Nothing was adding up. Besides he had healed her, hadn't he? Really healed her. Before his spells had just healed the wounds, but left her weak and suffering in the aftershocks of the torture. Now she felt nothing. Her pain was gone and there was not even a hint of stiffness in her body. Hermione scoffed in disbelief and cursed her healer instincts. _  
><em>

Hermione was wrenched from her thoughts by several cracks of Apparition. Panicked, she took Malfoy's wand and began to ward the door of the study with every defensive spell that she could think of. She couldn't take any chances. Close by she could already hear the shouts of Death Eaters approaching. She had to find a way out and she was taking Malfoy with her. At the very least the loss of their leader would be crippling to the new dark order and the information he could give would be invaluable. Surely that would be enough to justify saving him.

After securing the room Hermione turned her attention back to Malfoy. He had ceased writhing, but his breathing was shallow and his face flushed with fever.

"Malfoy, tell me what is going on. Let me help you." Hermione flinched at her own words. There was still a large part of her that wanted to Avada him and be done with it. No one would blame her. In fact everyone she knew would love for him to be eliminated. But she conceded that it would be more prudent to keep him alive. Only he knew the identities of all of the Death Eaters, allies, and where their bases were located.

She waited for a response, but none was forthcoming. Hermione wasn't even sure that he had heard her. He looked barely conscious. Deciding to give him something for the pain, Hermione reached over him to grasp one of the potion bottles on the floor. She was about to uncork the small vial when one of Malfoy's hands shot out and grabbed her wrist in a vise like grip.

"Granger. You have to listen to me. We have to get out of here. Those sirens mean that they know you are free and they will stop at nothing to get you back. They will know that it was me who set you free, so now I'm in just as much danger as you. I trained these men. They are nothing short of ruthless. I can get us out. You have to trust me." His voice was laced with pain, but was no less commanding.

"Why?" Her voice was bitter and harsh even to her own ears. Hermione was not very keen on the idea of trusting the vile git. No matter how much pain he was in, she felt nothing for him but hatred and a small tinge of pity. There would never be a possibility of trust between them. She searched his eyes for any sign of deceit, but all she found was a silent pleading and behind it was the look she recognized as fear. Hermione swallowed her anger and nodded her head, agreeing to listen.

Malfoy began to speak again but his words were stifled as his back arched in pain and another groan ripped from his throat. Hermione felt a rush of concern as he was left gasping from the assault and tried once again to speak.

"We have...to get out. I will...explain after we..get away." His voice was little more than a strained whisper and Hermione could see how much it took out of him to speak.

"How? How are we supposed to get out of here?" Hermione watched as Malfoy drew on the last of his strength and she leaned in closer to catch the instructions he whispered into her ear.

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><p>Draco was losing his mind - literally. The "other" was shrinking back into the depths of his mind, moving as far away from the probe of the second invading consciousness as possible. Draco didn't have the time or the energy to think about this. It was all he could do to keep up his mental defences. He couldn't remember the last time that he had been forced to fight this hard, or ever having to defend himself from such painful Legilimency. Not even his father's most invasive prying had hurt him any more than a mild stinging hex. This pain was like Crucio on steroids bouncing around in his scull.<p>

Draco fought back a wave of nausea as the probe clawed past the mental defenses around his memories. He scrambled to shield his them only to have his barriers swatted away before they were even complete. What the invader was sifting around for Draco had no idea. It wasn't going through his memories, just trying to get past them for something deeper. There was nothing he could do but try and slow the probe down while he waited for Granger to finish her task. He prayed to all the powers he could think of that she would hurry. As much as it pained and disgusted him, he would not last very long without her.

So he was left to struggle for control. In the two minutes it took Granger to return with the necessary items Draco felt absolutely drained. He barely even had the strength to give her the final instructions. It was nearly all he could do to talk and ward off the attack at the same time. He clenched his jaw against the pain as he reached into his robes and handed the slim black book he kept in a pocket over to Granger. She would need the incantation inscribed inside to complete the spell that would allow them to escape as well as the photo sealed to the inside of the cover so that she would know where to Apparate. If she didn't follow all of the steps exactly the wards around his safe house would tear them to shreds.

In the middle of his instructions Draco paused. The probe had halted. He could only assume that the invader had found what they were looking for. Slightly panicked, Draco spoke the rest of the instructions as quickly as he could. Whatever the intruder planned to do, he had no intention of being around to find out.

No sooner had the last word left his mouth than Draco's strength failed him and he slipped into unconsciousness.

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><p>Hermione nearly dropped the potion in her hand in shock when Malfoy suddenly collapsed and stopped moving altogether. She cursed loudly. With the complexity of the spell she had had no intention of preparing the potion and incantation on her own. Somehow Malfoy had devised a spell that made someone's Apparitions temporarily untraceable and it was a complex process. There was also instructions for mixing a potion that would serve as a key through the wards of the Apparition point. She had never heard of wards that required that kind of key which meant that she had to put her full trust in the very bloody and untrustworthy hands of Draco Malfoy, evil incarnate.<p>

Hermione sighed dejectedly and got back to work. She didn't have time to panic and stress over the details with her usual levels of obsession, so she did her best to focus and limit her curiosity. Already the shouts from outside the study were growing louder and closer. She tried to ignore them as she continued to mix various potions into a large cauldron. He must have brewed portions of the potion in advance so that he could assemble the concoction more quickly should the need arise. Hermione wondered if he knew something like this was going to happen in the first place or if he was just that paranoid.

When all of the potions and various ingredients had been added to the cauldron Hermione picked up a wicked looking curved dagger. This, she decided, was her least favorite part by far. Pursing her lips in disgust, Hermione drew the blade across her palm and held it over the cauldron until there was a small red pool sitting on the surface of the potion. She lifted Malfoy's hand, only little eagerly, and did the same. As his blood joined hers in the cauldron, there was a small hissing noise and the mixture began to boil furiously. After a few moments the potion stilled and turned a cloudy gray and a fine mist settled over the surface. Hermione sighed with relief. All that was left was the incantation.

Hermione took up Malfoy's wand again and began what she knew would feel like a six mile long spell. She assured herself that everything would go well and without any hitches. Most of the spell was familiar to her, but she still had to reference Draco's notebook every once in a while just to make sure.

After she waded through about half of the incantation Hermione nearly lost her concentration. The noise had finally reached the study and there were Death Eaters banging on the door, calling for the Dark Lord. She fought to maintain her concentration and sped up her casting. They were definitely out of time.

She finished the spell in record time and rushed to scoop up the now silver potion into a cup so that she and Malfoy could drink, but she was interrupted by the noise of splintering wood. Down the center was a jagged crack. She couldn't breath and could only stare as some unseen force reduced the door into a pile of splinters.

Hermione sat like a deer in the headlights as a lone Death Eater swaggered into the room. He had the hood of his black cloak pulled down low over his head so she couldn't make out his face. For a moment everything stood still and it seemed like all of the air had been stolen from the room as the hooded man stood watching her. Behind her she could see the still bodies of other Death Eaters. But she didn't have time to be confused. Hermione jerked Malfoy's wand into the air, re-warded the room, and set a shielding charm around herself and the incapacitated Dark Lord just in time to deflect a nasty looking curse from the Death Eater. As she turned to scoop up the potion, Hermione could hear her shield whine and strain as it was hailed with spells. The shield was too weak and she prayed it would hold up long enough for them to get out. She tipped back the cup of potion and ignored the metallic taste as she gulped it down. Hurriedly she refilled the cup and pressed it to Malfoy's lips.

He wouldn't drink. Hermione groaned in desperation as the shower of spells picked up in frequency and severity. She filled his mouth with the liquid and coaxed his throat, begging him to swallow the potion. After what felt like entirely too long, he coughed and somehow managed to choke down the mouthful. Hermione nearly sagged with relief, but she didn't have the chance to celebrate. As she shrugged on a bag of Malfoy's supplies and reached out to grasp his arm so they could Apparate, her shield failed. She was so shocked that she barely blocked a curse aimed for her head. Hermione stood as she fended off the fierce attack. It was too risky to Apparate both Malfoy and herself to safety with all of the spells flying around. For the first time in four years Hermione cursed her decision to teach at Hogwarts instead of join the Aurors with Harry and Ron. Her dueling skills were not what they once were. She was struggling to hold her ground against the Death Eater.

As the Death Eater calmly began to circle she finally saw an opening. Hermione fired off two quick slicing hexes, the first to distract, the other aimed at his wand arm. She followed them with three rapidly shot stunning spells. As she predicted, the Death Eater dodged the first slicing hex. The second was aimed for where she knew he would dodge, but before he was hit, he quickly sent off a spell of light purple light and by the time she realized where it was heading, the spell slammed into Draco. When she looked back at the hooded figure, he was in a heap.

Without pausing to enjoy her victory Hermione knelt back down beside Malfoy, took one last look at the photo he had given her, and Apparated them both out of there.

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><p>A.N. Well, there is Chapter 3! I hope you liked it! Huge thank you to Mistwood, my wonderful Beta! You are amazing! Be sure to go check out her current fic, A New Beginning. It is absolutely great!<p>

Alrighty then, be sure to review! It will make my day and maybe I won't kill off any major characters. Just kidding, I would never do that :). Tell me what you think of the chapter! Guesses are welcome and encouraged.

xoxox

Summer Orchid


	4. Haven

A.N. I am so sorry for the delay! My beta and I have been a bit swamped.

Thank you so much all of you who have added this to favorites/subscription lists and those of you who took the time to review. I appreciate all of you so much and you give me a lot of support. I hope that you enjoy this next chapter.

08-29-2013 For those of you who read the original, there is a really important change in the middle of this chapter. I will mark it with **.

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><p>Chapter Four<p>

Hermione nearly cried with relief when they made it to the small cabin without splinching, Apparating into a wall or anything else equally gruesome. She made her way quickly towards the door levitating Malfoy ahead of her. Being out in the open made her feel vulnerable and exposed. About ten feet from the cabin Hermione shivered violently and the hair on the back of her next stood on end. The surrounding wards were some of the strongest and by far the most intimidating that she had ever encountered and for a moment it felt as if the air was alive and crackling with magic. It was a feeling that she could definitely live without experiencing again. Hermione pushed through the wards, more intent than ever to get out of the open, but as she stepped forward out of the reach of the wards she stopped short. The cottage swam before her eyes and rippled like a disturbed reflection in a pool of water and when the building settled Hermione found herself in front of a three story cottage. For a moment or two she struggled with the urge to study the concealment charm over the building but a small moan from Malfoy had her focusing back to reality.

Hermione shook herself and passed through the rather large front door into a sitting room so un-like Malfoy that she was almost sure that she had the wrong address. The room was a light, sunny pale yellow with dark modern wooden furniture. The decor was minimalist and utterly lacking in the opulence that she was sure Malfoy preferred. She had seen the inside of Malfoy Manor once and had knew that the Malfoy's were not modest by any stretch of the imagination in the display of their wealth. But what the room was lacking in gaudiness, the decor more than made up for in quite sophistication.

Quickly dismissing the room, Hermione moved out of the sitting room and into a long and narrow hallway lined with doors. She quickly searched the rooms looking for a place to stabilize and secure Malfoy, all the while wishing that she would find a dungeon in the basement - it would only be fitting. However, all she found on the ground floor was a large kitchen, a small personal library, and on the other side of the hall, an absolutely massive potions lab.

At the end of the hall she found another doorway that led to a dark spiral staircase. Hermione was still rather suspicious of the whole situation she had found herself in lately, so she whispered, "_Homenum Revelio_." For all she knew Malfoy had arranged and orchestrated this whole thing to lure her into some kind of trap. This house could be just another Death Eater hideout.

After a few seconds the spell revealed nothing so she proceeded, a little too quickly to consider the comfort of Malfoy, down the staircase. In the dim light of the staircase it was hard for her to make out the steps and Malfoy's body thudded more than a few times into the wall. Hermione waved Malfoy's wand sharply in agitation and muttered, "_Lucis Globum_." Several small lights floated from the tip of the wand and positioned themselves at intervals down the staircase. At the bottom there was another narrow hallway, but the light from her spell was too dim for her to make much out. The darkness struck her as odd. The whole of the upstairs floor had been full of light despite arriving in the middle of the night. As she sent out more of the lights it hit her. She moved towards a spot on the wall close to the bottom of the staircase and there it was. A light switch. The humor of the situation was not lost on Hermione as she flipped the switch and the hall was bathed in soft fluorescent light. Hermione doubled over for a moment with laughter. Malfoy's house had electricity!

Hermione collected herself as she gasped for breath and wondered if all of the madness of her life had finally managed to drive her off the deep end. She wouldn't be in the least surprised. Hermione canceled her light spell and scolded herself for losing her cool yet again and soothed her guilt by chalking it up to stress.

She moved to the first door in the hallway and was much relieved to discover a bedroom. Hermione levitated Malfoy over to the bed and canceled the spell leaving him to drop a few feet to the mattress. He hit the bed with a soft groan and Hermione felt a twinge of pity that she quickly squashed back down. There was absolutely no reason in her mind to feel sorry for the slimy git. Remembering the spell that had hit Malfoy before their escape, she quickly checked him over. There didn't seem to be any damage so she refused to be more than mildly curious. Barely sparing him another glance, she swept out of the room and warded the door heavily from the outside. She paused for a second and then added a few rather nasty hexes for good measure. The only person who could now enter or exit the room unscathed was her. Satisfied, Hermione turned from the door with a smug nod and set out to explore the rest of the cottage. She needed to find a way to contact Harry.

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><p>By the time Hermione dragged herself to the room she had claimed for herself, conveniently located across the hall from Malfoy's, she was utterly exhausted and more than a little frustrated. The cottage was absolutely massive and had the largest collection of books and potions stores that she had seen outside of Hogwarts. However none of it had proved useful. After what was undoubtedly an unhealthy amount of time searching, she had yet to find a single safe way to get in contact with the Aurors.<p>

Hermione sighed dejectedly and fell onto the large four poster bed. For the first time in Merlin knew how long she was clean, having utilized one of the large bathrooms she had come across earlier. She had even transfigured a small wardrobe worth of clothing from sheets she had found in a linen closet that was nearly the size of one of the guest bedrooms. Hermione snuggled into the soft mattress and thanked all the powers she could think of for Malfoy leading her here, even if it did turn out to be a trap. She had missed sleeping on a bed.

A tear broke free and rolled down her cheek as she settled underneath the fluffy duvet. Hermione swiped at it and berated herself for breaking down over somethings as small as a shower and a bed, but it didn't stop the flow of emotions. She had held strong through everything and it had taken toll on her. Allowing herself this small moment of weakness, Hermione cried herself to sleep.

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><p>Hermione opened her eyes and blinked rapidly in disbelief. In the dim moonlight all she could make out was the dim outline of the trees around her. Hermione tried to swallow the panic that was rising in her throat and tried to orientate herself. She told herself it wasn't real over and over in her head like a mantra and clenched her eyes shut in hopes that the forest would disappear and she would wake up back in the heavenly bed she had left behind. Hermione slowly unclenched her eyes and peered through her lashes. The sound of the leaves rustling in the trees sounded like laughter, mocking her. She was in the clearing facing the stone from before and she could hear the song of the red bird from before, but the sound had turned sinister.<p>

**Hermione turned and ran as if the Devil himself was after her. The trees whipped and grabbed at her as she sped past them. She didn't know for how long she ran, but panic clawed at her throat. No matter how far she traveled she always ended up at the clearing. She was running in circles. Hermione stopped in her tracks and looked around wildly for any way out. Her head was spinning and her breath was coming in frantic pulls. The forest began to shift around her and images flashed in front of her. She saw the curious faces of her students as she and Neville showed them a rare herb. Her heart clenched at their faces as they passed by. They had been her responsibility and she had left them alone with Neville. Guilt swept over her. Trees whipped by her faster and faster and tears began to course down her cheeks. Fear and remorse swept over her in overwhelming waves as the forest swept past her. Hermione fell to her knees as the world around her finally came to a stop.

This time when she found herself in the middle of the clearing, she stopped running. Hermione walked cautiously towards the circular stone and peered down at the runes. Her blood ran cold as she read the passage that ran along the edge on the millstone.

_Once betrayed, there is no forgiveness._

_Once abandoned, there is no hope of re-union._

_Once sworn, revenge is swift. _

_Beware the power of one betrayed, abandoned, and bent on revenge._

_Nothing can stand between a woman and what she truly desires. _

_She was betrayed, but not in full,_

_Not abandoned, but forgotten,_

_Not dead, but trapped away and ready to be free. _

_When the ties of family are murdered,_

_Strange magic is always at work._

_She holds the key to restoring what has been broken._

_She alone can restore the balance of the family and restore the love that has long grown cold. _

Hermione stumbled back from the stone, her mind working at a million miles a minute. And then she heard it - the distinct pop of Apparition. She heard the rustling of steps behind her and pushed herself off of the rock to face the Death Eaters. As soon as she turned her vision was filled with the red light of a curse and she screamed as the spell slammed into her chest.**

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><p>Hermione shot into a sitting position as the scream died on her lips. She clutched at her chest as she tried to catch her breath. Tears were still streaming down her face as the terror of her dream coursed through her. Hermione focused on her breathing as she willed her heart and lungs to calm and she slowly sank back down to the bed as she relaxed, the strange words on the stone fading out of her memory. She snuggled into her pillow a little wary of sleeping but she didn't want to think either. It was too painful. So she tried to focus on emptying her mind as she tuned into the noise of the cottage. The quiet creaking of the wood as it settled was oddly comforting and soon her exhaustion began to take over.<p>

She sighed softly and wished for more peaceful dreams and closed her eyes, but another sound caught her attention. Beyond the creaking of the house and the soft sound of the wind she could hear soft moans. Hermione picked up Malfoy's wand from where she left it on the nightstand and inched to her door. She quietly sneaked out into the hall and realized the noise was coming from the room across the hall where she had left Malfoy.

Hermione made her way to the door, wand at the ready and a stunning spell on her lips, just in case, and cautiously opened his door. Through the dim room she could just barely see him lying in the middle of the large canopy bed. The light from the hallway wasn't enough for her to see him clearly so she flipped the on switch beside the door. When she saw his face she gasped and hurried over to the bed. He had been much more ill than she had anticipated. Malfoy's face was deathly pale and his furrowed brow shone with a sheen of sweat. As she drew closer she could hear his breaths coming in shallow gasps.

Hermione went into full healer mode; she could not allow him to die. This realization stunned her, but she was quick to reason that the information he had was too valuable to waste. She ran back to her room to retrieve a case of potions she had taken from the potions stores earlier and returned to sit on the side of Malfoy's bed. She gave him potions for the fever and to ease his breathing, but she didn't know how much more that she could do for him considering she had no earthly idea what was wrong with him in the first place. Hermione held her wrist to his forehead and hissed when the heat of his fever scalded her skin. The potions would not work fast enough on a fever this high.

She began conjuring wash cloths and a metal bowl, filling it with a quick _Aguamenti_. Hermione chilled it before dipping the cloths in to soak in the water while she opened Malfoy's shirt. She covered the flushed skin of his torso with the cold cloths and draped another across his brow. Hermione took up the last cloth and bathed the rest of his face and neck with it.

Malfoy began to relax and his breathing even out under her ministrations and mumbled under his breath. At first Hermione dismissed what he said, chalked it up to the fever, but as his ramblings became more insistent she began to listen. It was hard for her to make out all of the words but what she did hear made her freeze in shock. From what she pieced together it sounded like Malfoy was begging someone to stop. Stop hurting his mother. Hermione drew back. It was common knowledge that Malfoy had killed his mother. It had been the start of all of the trouble; Malfoy's public embrace of the Dark. Word had it that she refused to let him take a place in Voldemort's inner circle so Draco had killed her for her insolence. She thought it was more than a little bit strange for him to show much concern for her.

Hermione shrugged it off and was tempted to ignore what he said, but she could not shake the feeling that she was missing something.

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><p>When Hermione was finally able to drag herself from the room she was surprised that she still had the strength to move. Malfoy's fever had finally gone down and he had gone quiet as he settled into a deep sleep under the influence of a rather strong sleeping draught – enough for twelve hours. She felt numb and didn't even find pleasure in her bed as she practically threw herself between the sheets. Before she lay down Hermione took a dosage of the drought for dreamless sleep and snuggled into the pillow. She hated taking any kind of sleeping aid, but she had the feeling that when Malfoy woke up she would need all of the energy she could get.<p>

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><p>A.N. Thank you so much for reading! Be sure to review! I am interested in your opinions and guesses. Guesses are my favorite.<p>

Thank you once again to my wonderful beta, Mistwood. She is fantastic and somehow managed to edit this chapter even with all of her schoolwork and while updating her own fic. Be sure to check out her current fic, A New Beginning. It is absolutely wonderful.

xoxoxox

Summer Orchid


	5. Dreams and Mysteries

A.N. So yeah, it has been a long time hasn't it? I'm sorry! I have had much more than my fair share of excitement lately and my beta has had a good bit as well. I will tell you about it if you would like to hear, but for now let's get on with the story, yes?

Disclaimer: You know the drill? Must I keep doing this? If it isn't canon, it's mine.

08-29-2013 There aren't any real changes to this chapter.

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><p>Draco swore and quickly clamped his eyes closed again to hide them from the light. Someone had left the curtains open and the sunlight sent stabs of pain through his already tortured skull. His whole body throbbed and ached in a feeling that he could only compare to the aftermath of being trampled by a herd of hippogriffs. Not that he knew what that felt like, but he imagined it wasn't a stroll through the spring meadows. While his eyes adjusted to the light Draco peered up from the bed. All he could see was the shadows of leaves and branches of trees dancing across the soft yellow canopy above him. They held his attention for approximately three seconds before his sanity demanded something more interesting. He was never one to just lay about in bed. It used to drive him crazy whenever he got sick or hurt and had to spend any great amount of time resting.<p>

Draco clenched his teeth against the pain as he tried to push himself into a sitting position but he got no more than half way before his arms gave out and he fell back to the bed. He cursed at his own weakness and rested for as long as his patience would allow – about four more seconds – before he tried again.

Again and again he tried to sit up until he was exhausted and more than a bit shaky. He swiped at the fine layer of sweat on his brow with more force than necessary, but his condition had him on the brink. Draco prided himself in the fact that he was not a weak person, at least physically and treated any sort of illness or injury as a personal insult.

While he tried to catch his breath Draco tried to remember how he had ended up in this position. The last thing etched into his memory was strange laughter echoing through his head and then all he could register was pain. He tried to think of what happened before, but his mind was oddly blank. Draco wracked his brain for the memories but as soon as they seemed within his grasp they floated away again. It was like trying to hold on to water. He chased after the memories with all of the concentration he could muster and after what felt like hours all he had to show for it was a splitting migraine. This only served to make him more determined to get up. He needed answers and the first order of business was figuring out where there hell he was.

Draco worked himself up again and was very nearly drenched in sweat by the time none other than Hermione Granger flounced into the room like she owned the place. She gasped, raised _his _wand and trained it straight at him. Draco paused in his attempt to get up and stared back at her; his shock mirrored on her face.

"Uh. Hi." she said.

She shook herself and the look of shock melted into a guarded mask and Draco could see her knuckles whiten around his wand. Even though he was decidedly uncomfortable with her having his want, it was more than a little musing.

Draco let out a low chuckle. "Honestly Granger, is that how you are going to greet me? Good morning to you too." He watched as her face slipped back into a look of confusion at his words, but disregarded it. "Speaking of greetings, what are you doing here? And why do _you _have _my _wand?"

He watched her with an smirk plastered on his face as she struggled to speak. Her mouth opened and closed several times like a fish out of water until she managed to collect her wits.

"Are you mad," she asked. The little squeak in her voice did not escape his notice.

"Last time I checked, no. But you on the other hand I am not so sure. What in the bloody hell are you doing here. I have not seen or spoken to you in years and to tell you the truth, I quite liked that arrangement. You entirely too confrontational for my liking."

Hermione scowled at him and he saw the wand in her had twitch. "What are you on about, Malfoy? I have no patience for you at the moment. You know very well why and how we came to be here considering it's your own bloody fault."

Draco's arms finally gave out from the strain of holding him half up and he fell back down to the pillows. "Well, you see Granger," he said tiredly, "That's just the thing. I don't know. I am not sure I care to know. However, I feel like this is going to be interesting so could you be a dear and enlighten me as to what's going on?"

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><p>Hermione was seething. Whatever game he was playing was only making her more angry, and a little bit afraid. His whole apathy to the situation was unnerving. What she had gone through was not something that could be dismissed so quickly. As messed up as it was, Hermione wanted him to own up, to try and lord what he had done over her, anything. Maybe there was a possibility that he had lost his memory. To be fair, she had absolutely no reason to trust him, but there was only one way to find out whether he was lying or not.<p>

"Malfoy, I am tired of this. I will give you one more chance to tell the truth and give me one good reason not to kill you and save myself the torture of your presence." She stepped away from him, mindful to keep the wand between them and out of his reach. "And frankly, you owe me considering I saved you from that Death Eater in your office. So get over yourself and tell me where exactly we are and how I can contact Harry."

Draco sighed and closed his eyes. "However much I would love to answer those questions, I can't. I don't remember anything of what happened. You are going to have to figure that out for yourself."

Hermione stomped her foot in a rare childish display of rage and spoke through clenched teeth.

"How in the world do you think I would believe that you have no idea where we are? You are the one who led me here. Are you seriously going to continue this ridiculousness?" Her voice rose higher and louder with each word until she was nearly screaming at him. But it didn't matter. He just laid there, unmoved by her words.

"Yes, Granger, I do expect you to believe me." There was a few moments of silence before all of Hermione's control broke and she lunged forward to take hold of Malfoy's shirt collar. Her hands shook with rage and she barely suppressed the urge to throttle him when he opened his eyes and glared at her with disdain.

"You prat! You wiped your memories on purpose, didn't you?" Hermione was practically screaming into his face and he barely reacted. She began to shake him. "Why? Why did you do it? You know, it won't protect you."

With that Hermione released him with a violent shove and stepped away from him. It was becoming to hard to control her anger. The stress of it all had pushed her to the edge. She should have known that the bastard would try and find some way to preserve himself, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out why he had saved her and insisted that she take him with her. And then there was the matter of the fever. Hermione was definitely past her patience level with the whole situation so she decided on a more rash course of action. Without giving him any time to react, she raised his wand and aimed it at his forehead.

"_Legilimens_." Hermione caught him off guard, so she easily swatted away the barriers around his mind and tore through his memories without remorse or hesitation. She scoured his mind callously for his memories of torturing her, of the moments in his office leading up to when he had collapsed from the pain and fever. But she could find nothing but a strange gray mist. Hermione had never seen anything like this in anyone's mind before and it rubbed her the wrong way. No one could do this to themselves. It was possible for someone to repress memories for sure and if they knew the correct spell it was even possible to erase them. However, the strange fog was new to her. The characteristic scarring of memory removal was absent as well. It didn't feel like memory altering magic, but she could sense the magical trace of someone else's tampering. Her mind went back to the office and the spell from the Death Eater.

With a little more heed to his condition Hermione tried to search further back, to find any memories of his time as the new Dark Lord. As she encountered only mist Hermione became more and more frantic. She sped through his mind at a speed that was so disorienting that she felt the bile begin to rise in the back of her throat and she had to steady herself on one of the bed posts.

Eventually she pushed past the mist and found herself in a study that she recognized as one of the rooms in Malfoy Manor. She had had the distinct pleasure of combing through the Manor with Harry and a few other Aurors after the end of the war look for objects of Dark magic, so the elegant sitting room was familiar. She watched as a much younger Malfoy entered the room and crossed to one of the heavily curtained windows. He drew back the curtains and just stood there, gazing into a splendid Victorian style garden, until his mother had entered and rested her small hand on his shoulder. Hermione watched in shock as the younger Malfoy turned slowly towards his mother and she could see the tears falling silently down his cheeks. Hermione left the memory very quickly, a bit ashamed at stumbling into a memory so personal. She was also more than uncomfortable seeing Malfoy display any kind of human emotion.

She back tracked and searched again for any other recent memories, unrelated to any of his dark dealings, but Hermione still only found nothing but the strange mist. As she retracted her probe she admitted to herself, albeit begrudgingly, that Malfoy had been telling the truth and he had not wiped his own memories.

As the room came back into focus the first thing that greeted her was the ice cold glare of one Draco Malfoy. She felt her face flush a bit with shame and she broke eye contact quickly to settle her gaze at the floor. After a few moments of silence she finally mustered the courage to speak.

"You weren't lying." Her voice was hardly a whisper, but he heard her nonetheless. Malfoy chuckled mirthlessly and she lifted her eyes to meet his disdainful look.

"I do believe that is what I told you right before you decided it would be a good idea to go digging around in my head." Hermione's spine stiffened at the spiteful tone of his voice and raised her chin defiantly.

"After what you have put me through I have every right to treat you this way. You deserve no better treatment." Malfoy sputtered and looked at her as if she had grown three heads.

"Really," he scoffed. "And what could I have possibly done to deserve you raking through my mind, and in the process giving me the migraine of the century I'll have you know, and treating me like some king of criminal?"

Now it was Hermione's turn to sputter. She lost what little control remained on her temper and began to scream at him again.

"Some kind of criminal! That is exactly what you are you vile, evil son of a bitch! I don't even know why I saved you! I should have left you to your disgusting followers and let them tear you limb from limb, but that would have been too lax a punishment for you. You deserve nothing. Not mercy, not consideration, not empathy. The only reason you are alive now is because you had information that would have helped us undo all of the evil that you've done over the past years. And now you don't even have that! Once I find a way to access those memories there will be no use for you and I will not protect you. There is no punishment fitting enough for your crimes."

As she yelled at him, Hermione could see the blood drain out of his face as he stared at her in confusion and horror. He made her sick. He could have done so much more with his life. She had never felt so disappointed in someone in her entire life. Without another word or glance in his direction she stomped out of the room and slammed the door shut with all of the strength that she could muster.

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><p>For a long time Draco just stared at the door Granger had fled through. He had no idea what she was talking about, but from what he could gather he was even less eager to find out. Draco didn't know what he had done to make Granger so angry. For a moment, right before she left, he would have sworn that she was going to kill him. But instead she had given him such a look of hatred that it shook him to the core.<p>

Draco closed his eyes and tried to think through the migraine. He had to remember, but at the same time he was afraid of what he would find if he could push past the spell hiding his memories. He clenched his teeth until, with a quiet groan, the pain forced him to release his concentration. Draco relaxed his body into the bed. Between trying to fight off Granger's _Legilimens_ and then trying to fight through the spell on his mind, he had worn himself out. He wanted nothing more than to sleep.

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><p>Hermione stalked from Malfoy's room down to the corner she had set up for herself downstairs in the main library, muttering angrily and gesticulated wildly to herself the whole way. "Gah," she threw her hands up into the air.<p>

"Leave it to Malfoy to get me into this sort of situation! He _had_ to have set that up on purpose to protect his movement. This is all too easy." She slammed her hand against the wall as she pounded down the stairs.

"But he couldn't have done it to himself. I found traces of a different magical signature." Hermione paused at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, lost in thought before she continued her stalking.

"Okay, so maybe he planned this whole thing ever since I was captured. He could have had someone waiting for the right moment to wipe his memory. But why?" Hermione sank into the chair she had claimed with another frustrated sigh.

"Maybe he knew all along that I would probably be rescued and wanted to protect himself if he was captured?" Hermione shook her head. There was no way that Malfoy could think that he would get off scotch free if he never remembered committing any crimes. Besides, he would never have rescued her first, if he thought that her friends could come after her.

Hermione gave up on that train of thought. She could speculate about his actions and motivations all day and she knew that it would get her nowhere so she turned her attentions to the spell itself. From what she had seen from his mind, the memories seemed more hidden than anything. She tried to think of a spell that would be capable of doing something like that. Nothing that she had come across in any of her books was anywhere near powerful enough. Hermione slammed her fist against the padded arm of the chair.

"These things just don't happen out of no where. I have to be right! He is up to something." With that Hermione resolved to find out exactly what his plans where, but the first order of business was most definitely getting his memory back. There was a reason he didn't want them and thwarting his plans was something that she had not had the singular pleasure of engaging in since their school days.

Hermione strode over to the bookshelves and began pulling book after book from the shelves. When she couldn't carry them all anymore she just began levitating the stack beside her until she was satisfied with her collection. She made her way out of the large network of shelves and lowered the small mountain of book onto one of the work tables, ignoring the wood creaked under the weight. Without missing a beat, Hermione gathered writing materials from a nearby cabinet and settled down with the first book.

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><p>Hours later Hermione dropped her head onto the opened book in front of her. She had lost all of the energy from her previous temper explosion and was quite exhausted from all of the dead ends in her research. Not even the expansive library could give her the answers she was looking for. She had taken a break on the Malfoy issue a long while back and was now looking for a way to contact Harry. She knew she couldn't communicate with him by any conventional means after a few tests on Malfoy's wards. The man had to have been more than a little paranoid to make his safe house virtually impenetrable from either the inside or the outside. There wasn't even a floo system.<p>

She relaxed onto the desk and drifted as her body gave in to her weariness. She whispered a silent wish that this time she could sleep without dreams. Even after all of the potions she had given herself from the stores, Hermione was still recovering from her torture and her nightmares had been awful. A simple dosage of a dreamless sleep potion would suffice, but they were also addictive.

_Dreams. Dreams! That's it! _Hermione shot out of her chair and practically ran to one of the bookshelves. She remembered reading about a spell for dream-walking, but it was so intricate and borderline Dark that she had immediately dismissed it. She scanned quickly through the titles until she found the ancient looking tome near the back of the library. Hermione spelled all of the other books and papers back to their proper places and plopped the massive book onto her desk.

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><p>A.N. This chapter has quite a bit going on. I hope that it was to your liking. Let me know your likes, dislikes or conjectures. Reviews are much, much appreciated.<p>

Thank you to all of you that have read, reviewed, and added this fic to your favorite/alerts! I love every single one of you. Thanks for sticking with me!

Also thank you once again to my amazing beta, Mistwood! Be sure to check out her new fic. It is most excellent.

xoxo

Summer Orchid


	6. Dreamwalker

A.N. Dear Lord, I just realized how long it has been since I updated...it is really sad. I am getting back into the swing of things. This fic will not be abandoned.

Disclaimer: I gain nothing from this, nor do I own anything recognizable.

08-29-2013 Nothing new here ;).

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><p>Hermione stepped back to admire her handiwork. The canopy of her bed had been removed and replaced with a complicated network of blue threads from which hung various crystals, feathers, and glass beads. Most of the items she had either conjured up herself or, in the case of the crystals, created in the potions lab upstairs.<p>

Satisfied with her work, she crawled in between her sky blue silk sheets. As she settled onto her back, Hermione reached under her pillow for the black satin bag and poured the contents into the palm of her hand. Due to the specifications of the spell, it was filled with three butter yellow scolectite, a clove of garlic, and a lock of her own hair. The stones were used in ancient spells to help people realize messages in their dreams either from themselves or from higher sources. The lock of hair linked her to the spell, and the clove was an old ward from evil intent. Most of her peers in the magical world had scoffed at some of the ancient methods, but Hermione found comfort in the old traditions. The tested methods were always the safest.

Hermione sat back up and placed the items from the pouch on her lap. This was the part that she was dreading. In order for the spell to activate she had to add her blood to the mix. It would bind not only her consciousness, but her soul to the spell. If anything went wrong or if she lost her grip on reality, she could be forever trapped within the dreams.

Blood magic was largely considered taboo, and she had only come across brief mentions of it in all of the books she had read. But there were very few things that Hermione Granger could not accomplish with a fully stocked potions lab and what seemed like the largest magical library in Great Britain. Ignoring her screaming conscience, Hermione drew Draco's wand across her hand and mumbled a spell. She winced slightly as she gripped the stones in her wounded hand and dropped them back into the satin bag once they were coated in her blood. She did the same with the garlic and the lock of her hair. Once she had replaced the bag under her pillow and settled herself into bed, the uneasy feeling refused to fade. She was not proud of her methods, but she didn't have the time to look for any other options.

Hermione sighed and gazed up at the woven strands suspended over her from her bedposts. She had added the makeshift dream catcher just for the added sense of security. Dream catchers had fascinated her when she had studied Native American medicine and magic during the last summer when the students were gone from Hogwarts. It had just seemed fitting to add the foreign magic to the spell.

She closed her eyes and tried to drift off. The crystal and spell work she had done all day had filled the room with an almost tangible magic. The air was thick with it and was almost smothering so she charmed a small, warm breeze to blow around the room. She fell fast asleep to the soft caress of wind on her face and a faint tinkling as the crystals hanging from the middle of the dream catcher rustled.

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><p>Hermione opened her eyes and found herself back in her Professor's apartment at Hogwarts. The spell had said that she would be sent into the dream world to the place the she felt most at home. Allowing herself a small moment to wander around her little haven, she found herself gazing longingly at her plush armchair in the corner surrounded by book laden shelves.<p>

Ignoring the overwhelming temptation to just sit down in her chair and pretend the dream was real, Hermione pulled herself away from her room and focused on the dream. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on Harry. The book had said that the spell used your memories of a person to connect you to their dreams. The closer, in regards to experiences shared, the spell caster and the spell casted are to each other, the better the spell would work.

Hermione thought of the times she had shared with her best friend: their years at Hogwarts; their two years running from Death Eaters and destroying horcruxes; the days they would spend just sitting together trying to heal after the Battle of Hogwarts. Hermione felt the spell latch onto Harry's consciousness and felt a faint tugging right at her core, not unlike the feeling of apparition. When she opened her eyes she found herself standing in the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place standing right in front of the man that she had not seen in months. Hermione let out a sob and threw her arms around his neck. Harry hesitated only for a moment before wrapping her in a warm hug.

"This dream has got to be the best I have had in a long while. I wish you were really here, Hermione." Hermione felt her eyes tear up as her best friend pulled her closer.

"Harry, you're squeezing a little tight. This may be a dream, but I do still need to breathe," Harry laughed as he released her.

"I'm so sorry we haven't found you. We have been looking everywhere but no one can pick up your trail. None of the Death Eaters we have captured seem to know anything about your kidnapping. I don't know what I'll do if we lose you." His words rushed out and nearly tripped over each other. She could hear the anguish in his voice and it broke her heart.

"Harry, love, this isn't a dream," she said with a grin. "Well, it is, but I am really here."

Hermione held up a hand to silence his questions.

"Let me finish. I found a spell that allowed me to enter your dreams." Harry glared at her and opened his mouth to speak again, no doubt to tell her off. She knew the fight with Voldemort was still too fresh in his mind and the result of the spell to similar to his connection to the old Dark Lord for his comfort.

"Don't look at me like that. I know it sounds bad, but it was the only way I could think of to contact you." She watched as he tried to control his temper and was relieved when he nodded his head, indicating that he would hear her out.

"I don't have a lot of time. I don't know how long the spell will keep me here, so I will have to fill you in quickly." Harry stood there with a brooding expression as Hermione told him about her capture, her strange rescue, and Malfoy's predicament. Even after she had finished, he still said nothing. She knew that it all sounded loony and that it was a lot to process, but that didn't stop her heart from clenching in apprehension. She hoped he would not be angry with her for keeping Malfoy alive. The negative feelings between the two men ran deep and she knew neither would hesitate to eliminate the other on sight and without a hint of remorse.

"Harry?" Hermione's voice sounded weak to her own ears. "I think we need him. Malfoy is key to this war." She watched as he scowled and ran his hand through his hair rather violently.

"Hermione, I hope you are right about this. I really don't have any other choice at the moment but to trust you. I have known you for too long to try and force you, but do you even have a plan? There is no way I am letting you stay there alone with him and I don't know how to get the both of you out without revealing you to his followers." Harry heaved a huge sight and plopped down in a chair that materialized out of the dream.

"If you can figure out where you are, I can..."

Hermione cut him off.

"Harry, there is no way you can come here. I won't be able to do anything to keep the two of you from trying to kill each other. I don't think I could get you here, even if I knew were here was. I did some analysis on the house and it is hidden from any magical maps. Not only that, but there are some wards I don't even understand. Even Malfoy has to take a special potion that acts as a key to get in."

Harry brooded for a moment, annoyed at the prospect of leaving Hermione in such a crazy place.

"Anyway, the rest of the world is bound to be suspicious if you drop off of the map for too long." Harry pushed himself out of his chair, and she could see his face redden in frustration.

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Hermione walked closer to him and grabbed his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. She knew how hard this was for him. They had always been like siblings, and it was hard for him to see her in such danger.

"Harry, you have to let me do this. Once I get Malfoy's memory back, I will try to contact you again."

"No," Harry's voice was stern. "You need to contact me every four days. I refuse to sit around and wait for you to get his memories back. You don't even know how they were lost in the first place, let alone how long it will take for you to restore them."

Hermione begrudgingly agreed and hugged her best friend fiercely before saying her goodbyes. The last thing she saw before the dream shifted back to her office was the sad smile on Harry's face and the troubled look clouding his eyes.

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><p>Lucius Malfoy adjusted the hood of his black cloak further over his head as he walked through the hallway of the sitting room on the way to the private chambers of the leader. The sudden disappearance of his son and the Mudblood had sped up their plans, and he had been forced to activate the modifications on Draco much sooner than he would have liked.<p>

When he reached the double doors of the office, he paused to knock three times and heaved open the stout wood.

"We have a problem."

The woman at the desk showed no sign that she had heard Lucius and continued to scan the papers littering across her desk, her snow white hair rained around her face like a silky veil. Refusing to show his displeasure at not being acknowledged, Lucius lounged casually on one of the chairs by the fireplace. After a few minutes with the only sound being the occasional shuffling of parchment, the leader spoke.

"I presume this has something to do with you lifting the seal over Draco without my permission?"

Lucius suppressed the urge to wince.

"His subconscious started to rebel against the spell. I had no choice. If he had escaped without the adjustment who knows what the Mudblood would have discovered." There was a pregnant pause before Lucius was addressed again.

"I do not have to remind you of what will happen if she manages to break the rest of the seals, Lucius." This time he could not cover the slight grimace that passed over his face. When he opened his mouth to defend himself, the woman lifted her hand to silence him. Lucius felt a sharp tug on his mental defenses and reluctantly allowed the leader into his mind. He took a back seat as he watched his memories of the events leading up to his son's disappearance scanned thoroughly again and again until the leader was satisfied.

When the probe was finally removed, Lucius found his hands clenched into painfully tight fists. He had always hated opening his mind to anyone. It was an insult of the highest degree and made him feel too vulnerable; a state of being he was almost entirely unfamiliar with as a rule.

"Lucius."

His attention snapped back the the man behind the desk at the sound of his name.

"You seem to be lucky as of late. Your error might work in our favor."

"What error," he asked as he watched as the leader pulled out her wand and drew it across a spare piece of parchment as she muttered an incantation that Lucius didn't quite catch. Following her wand as it traveled a jumble of symbols appeared on the page, he watched as they floated around and re-ordered themselves into the seals that outlined the modifications on Draco. When everything stilled all he could do was stare. Somehow, instead of just releasing the first minor seal, Lucius had loosened all six leaving only the seventh untouched.

"I don't understand. The only way that could have happened was if..." The leader cut him off.

"Yes, I am aware. The only way the seals could have been undone was if some part of the boy was aware of the modifications the entire time. But we can make this work to our benefit. If everything continues to play out in this direction, it will work to our advantage. When everything is clear to him, Draco should break more easily. However, since you allowed for this mistake, there is the matter of your _reward._"

The words made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up uncomfortably. Lucius knew he had just run out of luck.

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><p>A.N. Thank you for reading and sticking with me! I know this is a bit confusing, but it will all be sorted. Any guesses? Likes or dislikes? Feedback is golden.<p>

Thanks to my beta, Mistwood, and my lovely friend, Adrian, who helped me with this chapter and kept me on track. You both are the best! XOXO

Summer Orchid


	7. Hidden in Shadows

A.N. Hello! I am back again haha. Thank you to all of you that have stuck with me! Your support is so much appreciated.

Have mercy on me. This chapter has not been beta-ed. I can't get a hold of Mistwood and I felt guilty for the huuuge gaps in between my updates. So here ya go ;).

Disclaimer: You know the drill. I own only the unrecognizable plot.

08-29-2013 I combined this chapter and what was chapter 8 and took out a bit of unnecessary stuff. I like it better this way :).

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><p>Chapter 7<p>

Draco leaned against the headboard as he watched Hermione flit across the room with a tray laden with food. He had watched her for the past week. The only time she came in to see him was to take care of his meals, check him for fever, and to make sure he was still locked in the room. They spoke very rarely. After several attempts he gave up trying to engage her in conversation. Every time she either glared at him silently or stalked out of the room with a snide comment.

If he hadn't been worried before, the way she was treating now had him petrified by what his lost memories contained. The fact that he had no idea what she was doing in this God forsaken house, and that she only told him that she was researching, not _what_ she was researching, only added to his stress. Why bed rest was supposed to be good for people he had no idea, it only made him more restless than rested. He constantly stewed over all the possibilities of what would happen when Hermione was finally finished with her "research". Draco blamed his over-active imagination for all of the sinister images running through his head.

If the slow decline of her appearance and the slow growth of the frizz in her hair was any indication of her progress, she wasn't getting the results that she wanted. And that was just fine for Draco. He knew that it had something to do with his memories and as far as he was concerned, he hoped that she would never find the illusive answers that had given her the horrid dark circles under her eyes.

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><p>Hermione glared at the pile of papers scattered in front of her as if they were personally concealing the answers. She was close, she could feel it in her gut. For weeks she had torn through Malfoy's library, but she had yet to find anything useful. What she had seen in Draco's mind wasn't enough for her to determine the type of spell used on his memories. She needed more to go on. The question was, should she force her way into his mind again. However, she had absolutely no desire to talk to him.<p>

Hermione sighed, upsetting the papers on the desk. She had avoided him long enough, and she supposed it was time to gather up the courage to try and talk to him. She grimaced at the scene that ran through her head. Draco was bound to be a prick and completely unhelpful, but she was running out of options.

Stalling for as long as possible, Hermione set about straitening the papers on the desk. Just because she had to be courageous and talk to him didn't mean she had to do it right then. When she found nothing else to do, Hermione steeled herself and headed to Draco's room. Hermione berated herself for her cowardice and pushed open the door roughly. Much to her chagrin, his surprise at her sudden entrance only showed on his face for the briefest of seconds before it changed back into the cool mask of indifference that had always infuriated her.

"Granger, is the house on fire or do you enjoy trying to scare the living day lights out of me?" Hermione scoffed at the comment but decided to let it pass. She still needed him to cooperate if she had any hope of seeing an end to her research.

"No," she said in a clipped tone, "I need some information from you." Draco's expression barely shifted, but she caught the guarded look the slipped over his eyes.

"So you have come to pry into my mind again," he said with a flat tone causing Hermione to flinch guiltily. Draco caught the slip and took it as confirmation to his suspicion. He laughed bitterly, "So why didn't you just barge in and take the information you need. Isn't that exactly what you did last time?" Hermione stamped down on her conscience and raised her head haughtily.

"You are in no position to ask questions. Given the situation, my actions were justified." Draco just raised one eye brow in response, but seemed to think better of challenging her justification.

"Here," he said with a smirk, "I will make this easier for you. I'm stronger than the last time you tried to force your way in. You will need my consent this time." Hermione hesitantly made her way over to the bed and sat on the edge, as far way from him as she possibly could. When she had settled herself, Draco gestured for her to begin.

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><p>Without a warning, Hermione pulled out of his mind and rushed down to her desk without giving Malfoy a backward glance. As soon as she sat down she pulled out a fresh stack of parchment and started jotted down notes like a madwoman, desperate to write all of her findings down while they were fresh in her mind. The traces of magic she had found in Draco's mind were odd and definitely had a different magical signature than that of his own magic. This only confirmed her growing suspicion that he had not wiped his own memory. As much as she hated to admit it, the facts just didn't line up. The way he mind was erased made it seem almost as if he was being disposed of.<p>

She had to dig deeply through the fog to find the traces of magic. They were so faint that she had almost missed them. Hermione thanked all of the powers that she was a thorough researcher and was familiar with magical residue. Beneath the initial signature, she found layers of residual from so many spells that at first she was worried that she wouldn't be able to remember them all. There was everything from memory modification to embedded compulsions to emotional alteration. It was a wonder that Draco, himself, was still in tact, for the most part. How true to his natural self he was at the moment still remained to be seen, but Hermione hadn't found any evidence that indicated any modification spell was still in place.

Pages and pages Hermione wrote of her findings, but as she continued a larger question became more clear. Why? Why had someone gone through all the trouble of setting in place a such complex series of spells to change Draco. Surely there was an abundance of Death Eaters that could have taken his place, so why bother with him? Hermione paused at that thought. Maybe it wasn't entirely true. The Malfoy that had followed in Voldemort's shadow was a step ahead of most of the Death Eaters. He was incredibly intelligent and such a cold-hearted murderer hadn't been seen since Bellatrix Lestrange herself. But she knew Draco was not naturally that way. Hermione remembered Harry telling her about his encounter with Malfoy in the bathroom back in sixth year. Regardless of the outcome, he had shown some remorse about what he was doing.

The more she began to understand what had been done to Draco's mind, the more angry she became. The fact that she was angry for him made her extremely uncomfortable, but she couldn't shake the strength of her emotion. It was extremely convenient that tonight she was scheduled to meet again with Harry. She was glad to finally have some kind of news.

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><p>Draco carefully eased himself out of bed. His head spun a bit, but he was pleased that he could at least remain upright by supporting himself on the high mattress. For several days now, he had been working hard to get his strength back. He was sick of lying down; sick of needing help to do the simplest of things. Today he decided that he would walk around the room a couple of times without any help. He was about halfway across the mercifully heavily carpeted floor when his legs decided that they were fed up with walking and buckled. He barely had time to catch himself and had to grit his teeth against the jarring in his wrists as they connected roughly with the ground. Indulging in a moment of self pity, Draco bemoaned his loss of reflexes and settled pitifully on the floor. He consoled himself with the fact that he still had at least half the day to accomplish his goal, so he need not worry about the small break.<p>

Unfortunately, Draco and his body did not have the same level of determination. After what felt like hours of lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, his body still did not have the strength to move. When he heard soft footsteps approaching from the hallway, he cursed under his breath and tried in vain to stand up again. He could not get his legs under him to save his life, so Draco gave up and tried to catch his breath and hide his exertion while Hermione unlocked the wards around the room. Subscribing to the childish notion that someone cannot be seen if their eyes were closed, he closed his eyelids and tried to give the appearance of lounging. Even if his wonderful plan failed at least he wouldn't be able to see the look on her face when she saw him.

After a moment he heard her step into the room and close the door behind her. _Odd_, he thought. Her footsteps sounded heavier.

"Lounging about again are we, Draco?" His eyes flew open at the foreign voice. Towering over him was a dark man, not dark skinned, just dark as if he was formed of shadows. His heart skipped a beat and then began to try to beat its way out of his chest. Draco felt his body slip into a panic attack, but for the life of him, he didn't know why he was so afraid. His gaze traveled up the shadowy figure and as he strained to make out the features of the face, pain blossomed behind his eyes. He grabbed at his head and tried to stifle the scream that was trying to claw its way out of his throat, but he could not hold back the moan that escaped his lips.

The pain was blinding and coursed all of his nerve endings like fire. He pulled his body into a tight fetal position and willed the pain to end. After feverish minutes he felt cool hands on his face and brow a voice broke through the rushing in his ears. A clear voice was calling out his name. Draco tried to make out the other words, but he couldn't push past the pain. The darkness of unconsciousness began to claim his mind and he willingly surrendered.

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><p>Hermione sat by Draco's bed for hours waiting for him to wake up. She was concerned that she had accidentally triggered his relapse with the prolonged Legilimency she had put him through earlier that morning. For the hundredth time she reminded herself that Malfoy had been fine when she left, but she could not say that she had given his condition much thought in her hurry to get back to work. When she saw him on the floor, she couldn't deny the sudden rush of anxiety. Despite her negative feelings for him, Hermione couldn't stand seeing anyone in such pain. His eyes were clenched tightly shut and his breath was coming out in quick, shallow moans. She didn't know what else to do for him other than settle him in bed and keep him cool. He had soon stilled, but she wasn't going to relax until he woke up.<p>

That night she skipped her scheduled meeting with Harry and slept in a cot she had transfigured next to Draco's bed.

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><p>Hermione sighed and rubbed her eyes wearily. She didn't know how long she had slept, but she still felt exhausted. Even her body seemed to protest at the thought of getting up to get ready for the day, but she knew a mountain of research waited for her. She groaned into her pillow when she remembered that she needed to come up with some elaborate story, one to tell Harry to explain missing their meeting. Harry would, no doubt, give her the mother of all dressing downs after she left him alone with his overactive imagination. She had been on the receiving end of such over-protective rants too many times to count; it was part of being the only female member of their little triumvirate for all those years. Her boys had always felt the need to look after her, despite the fact that it was she who often did the saving.<p>

With a dejected huff, Hermione dragged the blanket away from her face and stared at the ceiling as she mustered the will to move. Mornings like these really were the worst for her, but it wasn't until she sat up and had swung her legs over the side of the bed that she realized something was wrong.

First of all, she was in a bed instead of the cot she remembered conjuring. Her bed from Hogwarts. She quickly stomped down on the feelings of excitement beginning to swell in her chest. She knew in her heart that this was just a dream, like the last time she had ended up here, so there wasn't any use to falsely hope. It still stung to be in the dream of a place she most longed to be, but she didn't have time to mourn her losses before she felt a familiar tugging sensation at her core. Without time to even process the feeling, she was yanked away.

When she landed, Hermione stumbled and fell as if she had been Confunded. All around her was the acrid stench of death and she was thrown into a coughing fit from all of the smoke and dirt in the air. She searched frantically around for her wand, crawling on hands and knees through debris, only to find it half buried underneath a fallen man. Hermione whimpered as she reached out for her wand with a shaking hand. Turning away from the body as quickly as possible, she choked out a spell to filter the air and allow her to breathe easier.

As her breathing started to even out, the sounds around her came crashing into her ears. With a sense of dread that threatened to still her heart, she recognized the sounds of war. Screams of the wounded blended with the yells of curses, counter curses, defensive spells, hexes, and Unforgivables, in a distinct cacophony that would chill the heart of any man. Panic gripped her and she began to scan for familiar faces, but all she could see were blurs. She knew it was all just a dream, but it brought memories best left forgotten back to the surface.

All around her the figures of the past wove and swirled, and yet, not a single one touched her, nor did any spell. Hermione felt crushed by the voices, their struggles, and presence; it was intense enough to make her sure that she would suffocate. From all sides the chaos pressed in on her until her knees shook, and she nearly collapsed back to the ground. She had hoped to never hear the sounds of war again. All of her energy was focused on pushing the voices out of her head, and in blocking the screaming from her hearing. She centered in on her breathing and tried to calm herself, even upon self reprimand for losing her cool in a dream, not a dream, in a nightmare that wasn't even hers.

Hermione recognized the tug she felt before she found herself in this dream; it was from her earlier communication with Harry. The question was, whose dreams had she entered now? Better yet, how exactly did she get there without performing the necessary rites the dream-walking spell in the first place?

Shoving her questions aside for later, Hermione closed her eyes and stilled. She tried to feel the dream and concentrate on the source, the same way she had concentrated on Harry to reach him inside his mind. The sensation was a lot like using Legilimency and when she found the mental signature she was looking for, she barely had time to prepare herself before she was tugged further into the dream.

When the world stopped spinning, the first thing she noticed was silence. It was almost as shocking as being teleported in the midst of the battle, but the air was just as thick and stifling. Hermione looked around and found that she was in a strange clearing. She could still see the fighting going on outside of the clearing, but it was as if this small area was unaffected; like the eye of a storm.

She turned slowly, a little disoriented at the sudden shift in noise level, only to freeze when she saw what was behind her, or rather, who. Standing with his back to her was a tall man in Death Eater robes. His brilliant, silvery blond hair was pulled back with a black satin ribbon that hung well below his shoulders. Even without the cane she could still recognize Lucius Malfoy. But that was not what shocked her. Lying on the ground in front of Lucius was Draco Malfoy, not as she knew him now, but as a frightened and lanky sixteen-year-old boy.

The whole scene was so wrong. No matter how long much she hated the Malfoy family, their actions during the Second War had shown that they would do anything for each other. When the wizarding world had turned its back on them during the aftermath of Voldemort, the family had presented a solid front and survived together. Hermione would never have imagined Lucius ever turning his wand on his prized heir, but here they were. Half of her wanted to just leave him there, but the look of absolute horror on Draco's face tugged at her.

Hermione shook her head and reminded herself this was just a dream, and she closed her eyes to find the person whose dreams she had stumbled upon. She focused as she had earlier, but this time the feeling of traveling did not come. Again and again, she focused her mind, but nothing happened. Her eyes flew open with disbelief. There was only one reason the dream walking had stopped; she was in one of the Malfoy's dreams.

Unfortunately, her luck ran out before she had more time to think. She had been standing entirely too still for entirely too long and apparently Draco had noticed her. He was inching backwards and kept trying to glance at her inconspicuously. However, nothing is inconspicuous when you are scared out of your wits. Having caught his son's rather obvious shift in attention, Lucius whipped around and before Hermione had the presence of mind to react her wand was securely in his left hand. Not even a heartbeat later she felt the silent Petrificus. To say that she was shocked and terrified by how quickly the tables had turned did not do justice the chaos of emotions she felt by half. Even without the charm he had cast on her, she doubted she would even be able to move.

Ignoring Draco, Lucius slinked towards her reminded her of a predator and chilled her to the bone. As he continued to stalk forward, his features became clearer and she gasped loudly. The man before her was not Lucius, but Draco, the same Draco that haunted her dreams and scarred her body and mind. She stared, petrified, while Malfoy continued to creep towards her. It seemed to be taking forever for him to cross the twenty meters separating them. His eyes caught hers and she found herself captivated in his glassy stare. They were so wrong. They would have looked like the eyes of a doll if not for the sinister gleam that shone from them and kept her staring.

In her state of shock, Hermione didn't catch how, but their eye contact was broken and he was wrenched from her sight and thrown to the ground. By some odd grace Malfoy had directed all of his attention to her, leaving himself completely exposed for young Draco's attack, and landing them in their current position. Draco was straddling him with his wand digging into the soft skin of the underside of Malfoy's jaw. For a long time neither of them moved and the only sound was Draco's ragged breathing. Soon, however, his breath began to catch and then Hermione heard him break into racking sobs that shook his shoulders. The sobs coming from Draco were the most broken sounds that she had ever heard. Harry had never cried like this, not even after the deaths of Dumbledore or Sirius, nor had any member of the Weasley family after Fred's death. No, Draco's heart was in his cries and it sounded as if it had been shattered into a million pieces by more pain and sorrow than any sixteen-year-old deserved.

Hermione felt herself fall deeper into confusion as he began to speak between the cries.

"You stupid bastard," he gasped out. "Do you know what you have done? How could you have let this happen? I hate you! We were supposed to be strong; to escape and survive. You have killed us!" With every word, his voice rose until he was screaming into Malfoy's face. Hermione just stood there, mouth gracelessly wide open, as the boy began to wail on his older self in a flurry of flying fists.

Draco did not stop as blood began to spurt from Malfoy's now broken nose. He continued to pummel him with his anguished cries punctuating each hit. Bruises started to form on Malfoy's face and the delicate skin around his eyes began to swell. And still, Malfoy did nothing. He did not lift a finger against the young boy. Only his defiant eyes indicated that he was still alive.

Eventually Draco's swings began to slow along with his sobs until he slumped forward, utterly spent, with his forehead resting against that of his older counterpart.

"Remember," was the hoarse whisper from Draco's abused throat. "You need to remember."

No sooner did the words reach Hermione's ears that she was roughly yanked from the dream. It was so intense, that her consciousness slammed home with enough force to promise a future headache. Her eyes opened with a snap as Malfoy cried out in his sleep beside her.

"No!" He screamed to the night and thrashed in his bed. His face was scrunched up as if he was in pain, and his hands fisted as if he was fighting off the memories. Part of her hoped that he would win. His mind was too fragile. If anything else changed in his world, she was sure that his sanity could not bear it, and Malfoy would lose his invaluable memories to the curse of insanity.

In short order, Hermione had him magically restrained and knocked out with a vial of dreamless sleep. She checked the time with her wand, only to wish she hadn't, it was only half past three. There was no escaping it after her encounter with Malfoy's mind. She would have to meet with Harry. Things were getting out of hand and she had the feeling the craziness was only just getting started.

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><p>A.N. Soooooo? How about you tell me your thoughts as a birthday present? I would be super excited!<p>

For everyone who has stuck with me, read, and reviewed, thank you so much! I seriously love all of you!

Special thanks to Glorioux for helping me out and beta-ing this chapter. I'm sorry that you had to read through all of my odd mistakes. You are awesome! Everyone should read her fics! They are truly fantastic.

xoxo

Summer Orchid


	8. The End of the Rope

A.N. Hello again! I am so, so, so sorry for how long it has been since I last updated. I've been dealing with school, sickness, a car wreck, and physical therapy. Excuses, excuses I know. Will you forgive me if I say that I have the next 20 chapters mapped out? Well I do! And I am going to try my best to update once a week. Also, I don't have a beta right now, so pardon any mistakes!

Disclaimer: I own everything that is mine. The end.

Since it's been so long, here's a little summary:

Draco has become the leader of the new dark regime after the defeat of Voldemort. Hermione was captured while on a school camping trip and tortured for information. For reasons unknown, Draco sets her free and is injured in their escape to his hidden safe house. Unfortunately for Hermione, she soon discovers that once she get's in the wards over the house will keep her from getting out. Since she is trapped in the house with Draco, she decides to dig for any useful information he might have only to find his memories completely gone. When she investigates further, Hermione finds remnants of spells that modify behavior. If that wasn't odd enough, she gets sucked into Draco's dreams through an unfamiliar spell Hermione found in his library that she uses to communicate with Harry. Inside she finds that part of Draco's soul was locked away and he isn't too happy about the situation. This new found discovery is just another piece of the puzzle that she is bound and determined to put together.

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><p>Chapter Nine<p>

Hermione had finally reached her limit. The whole situation was too twisted and she didn't know how much longer she could stand it. Everything had happened too quickly and she hadn't even had time to process what had happened to her, let alone what Draco had gone through if what she had just seen was any indication. Not so long ago she had been a captive and the torture that she had….no, she couldn't let her mind wander there. And now here she was, stuck in the middle of some crazy drama she couldn't even begin to understand, left despising the compassion she felt for her former torturer.

She leaned up against Draco's door, her whole body shivering. It was all too much. Too much. Her hands grasped at her hair as she slid down the frame to the floor. For God knows how long she had been strong. But she didn't think that she could do it anymore. At least, not on her own. Unfortunately, she couldn't figure out a way to bring in someone else for backup. All she had were her dream visits with Harry until she could figure out how to bypass the wards on Malfoy's accursed house.

Shoving her emotions to the back of her mind, Hermione tried to focus herself and forget her bitterness. She needed Harry. Even though he wouldn't have any answers, he was the only one who knew the truth of where she was and what had happened. Besides, there wasn't anyone else who had been there for her like Harry had since they were children. She could always count on him. Even his most reckless moments were predictably Harry. He was her not so traditionally stable rock.

It was a good thing they were supposed to have a meeting tonight, so he would already be waiting for her. At least, she hoped he still be asleep with how late she would be traveling. Too unstable to move with any great speed, Hermione used the wall to stand. On still shaky legs she willed herself to her bed. Just the short trip across the hall was too much for her as emotionally and physically worn down as she was. By the time she sat on her bed it was obvious that she wouldn't need any help sleeping. As soon as her head hit the pillow she was out and back at her apartments in Hogwarts. She tried not to look around, afraid of what she would feel when she was already feeling like glass. Quickly she focused her mind on Harry and it was not a moment later that she felt herself being tugged into his dreams.

When the world settled she opened her eyes and when Harry moved into her line of sight, the damn on her emotions broke. Hard. She heard Harry's rushed footsteps as she collapsed into a puddle of tears. Quite literally unfortunately. Dreams are funny that way even when they aren't your own.

Feeling Harry's arms wrap around her only made the tears come faster and before she knew it, she was sobbing into his chest, his shirt fisted in her hand. Bless his heart, Harry just held her close and stroked her hair as he waited for Hurricane Hermione to pass. She didn't know how long she cried, but then she didn't much care. Even if she was sitting in a very wet puddle. She knew the tears would have come eventually and it was better that at least she wasn't alone.

When her sobs subsided to sniffles, Hermione pulled herself away just enough to see the rather large tear stain on the front of Harry's shirt. Beyond embarrassed, she pulled her shirtsleeve down and tried to mop up the mess.

"Oh Harry, I'm so sorry. I…," her voice cracked through the last stubborn tears and hiccups until Harry cut her off with a soft brush of his hand on her tear stained face.

"This is my dream, remember? It's nothing I can't fix." He winked at her and the mark on his shirt, as well as the now gigantic puddle underneath them, vanished.

"Right," she choked out. And then she laughed in earnest until Harry stared at her in alarm. "I'm alright, Harry. Merlin, I can't remember the last time I cried like that." Harry's face softened and he grabbed her hand.

"It's no wonder with everything that's been going on for the past three months." She began to nod as she wiped at her face and froze as she processed his last words. She could literally feel every drop of blood drain from her face.

"Three…three months," she whispered. "How…how in God's name has it been that long? How long have I been missing? How long have I been stuck in this house? God, Harry I…."

"Hermione, calm down," he said firmly taking a hold of her slight shoulders.

"I knew I had been gone for a long time, but Merlin."

Harry nodded in sympathy. "It was more than two months until you contacted me and we just met four days ago."

More than two months. The words echoed around in her skull and dragged her thoughts into dark places. She and Malfoy had been in his house no more than three days when she had first contacted Harry. That meant that she had spent around two months in that cell! Being tortured. She roughly yanked her attention away from that dark cell and tried to focus. It wasn't easy when there were so many unanswered questions. All she was sure of was whatever concoctions Malfoy had no doubt given her had to be incredible strong if she had withstood months of torture. Hermione didn't even want to know what she had looked like when he had carried her out of her her attention back to Harry, she saw that he was still eyeing her with a very concerned look on his face.

"I'm alright, Harry I promise. It all just got to me. Let's move over to the sitting room. I'm tire of sitting on the floor."

Harry gave her a hand up and uttered not a word as they moved into the dark, but comforting sitting room of the house on Grimmauld Place.

"So what has been going on," Harry finally asked. "You almost missed our meeting tonight and then you show up in tears? Did Malfoy do something to hurt you?"

"No, not lately or intentionally at least," she said warily. "Honestly, I was going to skip my meeting with you tonight." And she filled him in on everything that had happened during the past days. The furrows between Harry's eyebrows deepened and she went on to tell him what happened in Draco's dream that night. He was quiet the entire time and she had known him long enough to know that it wasn't always a sign of courtesy. "Whatever I thought was going on is nothing compared to what happened to him. I already had an idea that he had been forced, but it never occurred to me that he was conscious and aware the entire time. From all the spell work I found in his mind and what I can assume from his dream, it looks like someone constructed a whole new person from the original. Whoever did this to him trapped away a part of his soul, his innocence and all of the qualities they didn't value and locked them away in the back of his mind. That part of him was powerless to do anything but watch as he murdered, tortured, and did Merlin know's what else. There's a part of him that's still sixteen in his head and is traumatized beyond belief."

Harry remained quiet for a moment longer after she finished.

"So it do you think it's like when Voldemort split himself into his journal? Independent, but aware. Who did he kill?"

"I'm not sure that he killed anyone. It's almost like that, but I don't think he split his soul on his own. The two pieces of his self are not completely separated."

"And what kind of person do you think Malfoy is now? You said that he isn't his evil self that he was before, but if the good part is sealed away, we can't trust him. We can't be sure what he will do."

"All of the compulsions and modifiers they put on him just increased everything that made Malfoy the pain in the ass that we knew and hated during school. It was just magnified until he was dangerous for the most part. They took his childish prejudices, learned or not, and cranked them up into full blown hatred. They made his anger a thousand times worse and literally dictated some of his emotional reactions. Now he's just a very, very watered down version of all of his bad qualities, which aren't all that bad in the scheme of things, and he lacks whatever compassion he had in the first place. He isn't evil now, just difficult."

harry seemed to accept it readily enough, but she could tell there was more going on in his head than he was letting on. And he would continue to stew over it until he was satisfied he had all of the angles. His time as Head Auror had blessedly made him more analytical. Finally he sighed and dragged his hand roughly through his already messy hair.

"Every instinct I have is begging me to get you out of there, but our spies have come across a piece of intel that is hardly comforting. The other side is desperate to find you and Malfoy and the standing orders are to bring you both back dead or alive. The only thing I can get from that is there is somebody who was pulling Malfoy's strings and wants to hide that pretty badly before we can get our hands on him. They want him gone just as much, if not more than they want you dead." He paused and tugged at his hair again. "Tell me about the wards on his house."

Hermione sighed a bit more dramatically when she thought back to her analysis. "His wards are crazy, Harry. I'm not even familiar with half of them and I'm sure a good bit of them are dark. There are so many intertwined around the property that it's just one big complex mess. It really is a miracle that I got in even with the physical connection to Malfoy. Godric only knows what would have happened had I tripped one of them."

Harry nodded for the umpteenth time, leaned to rest his head against the back of the love-seat, and stared at the cracks in the ceiling.

"As much as I hate it, I think it's best that the two of you stay there for the time being. You need to figure out how to fix the tampering with Malfoy's soul and mind. Maybe if he didn't split it on his own like Voldemort did, then it can be fixed. And that un-fog his memories as well. If we can get his memories back that should tell us who's running the show." Hermione joined him and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"What I don't understand is why whoever is behind this chose to go through all the trouble of modifying a poor, but definitely misguided, sixteen year old boy instead of finding someone who suited their needs. Why taint an innocent child like that?"

Harry snorted, "He was hardly innocent Hermione. As much as I dislike the guy, and I really, truly do, he definitely did not deserve this. If you're right, and some part of him really did witness everything that happened over the past years…." Hermione's heart clenched a bit at the thought. Needless to say, they might end up with a very broken shell of a man when all things were said and done.

"I wish there was some way of extracting his memories without him having to remember. I'm afraid if we re-unite the pieces that his mind won't be able to survive. Malfoy was never an evil boy. He was just raised in a horrible environment." Harry chuckled and shifted to look down at her through narrowed eyes.

"This isn't one of your pet projects like the house elves, Hermione."

"I know," she scoffed. "Okay, maybe he's a bit of a prick naturally too."

That made them both chuckle and they proceeded to laugh over Hogwarts memories, particularly of their favorite white ferret. They relaxed together like they hadn't in years. Even though it was just a dream they both savored their time together helped each other forget the outside world.

* * *

><p>After a time they decided to part. Harry would be needed soon on the outside.<p>

"Alright Hermione," he said through a yawn as he stood and stretched. "Do whatever you can. Honestly, I can't say that there isn't a part of me that hopes that this doesn't work and Malfoy ends up falling apart, but for everyone's sake most of me wishes that is does work. I, for one, have had enough of war and Malfoy at least deserves to have to live with his memories. It might be too harsh a punishment, but if that's the only thing we can do, I'm willing to take that chance."

Hermione merely nodded and hugged him once last time. As she was tugged away she heard Harry yell a reminder to meet him in their agreed four days.

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><p>After Hermione left, Harry sat back down on the love-seat in front of the fire that he didn't truly feel. There really was a part of him that wished for Malfoy's suffering, whether he had been in control of his actions or not. Harry knew his bitterness against the man was unjustified, but it was hard for him to let go of the hatred. After the Battle of Hogwarts he had been able to get over most of it. Having seen how the death of Crabbe affected Malfoy along with the added pressure of trying to keep his family safe while under Voldemort's thumb had torn him apart. He knew that, at least in Malfoy's mind, his actions had been justifiable. Hell, Harry had seen first hand how strained he was when he stumbled upon Malfoy in Myrtle's bathroom during sixth year. And then when they had been captured and taken to Malfoy Manor, Draco had refused to identify him. Harry had been able to forgive him then for being an arse.<p>

It was not until Malfoy had taken up the mantle of the new Dark Lord that Harry regretted his easy forgiveness of the boy and his hatred had resurged with even more strength against the man.

And now? Now he had to re-evaluate his feelings towards the prick all over again. Part of him wanted to continue hating him, but Harry knew what it was like to feel as if a part of you is evil. He didn't envy Malfoy the self-loathing that would no doubt come from getting his memories back.

Harry sighed and grasped his hair in frustration as he felt himself being dragged out of sleep by the never-welcome sound of his alarm.

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><p>A.N. It's a bit short for being my first update in forever, but I hope you enjoyed it. Things are starting to come together a bit. Let me know what you think! Oh! And if you would like to help me with this, I will offer you cyber sweets!<p>

Oh! And you can thank Glorioux for this new update. She has always been there to remind me not to abandon this fic. Thanks for all of your help with this story! Check out her amazing stories ^^.

Because of all of you lovely people who have read, favorited, followed, and reviewed I am picking this story back up. Thank you for all of your support!

xoxo

Summer Orchid


	9. The Death of Malfoy

A.N. Aaaaand I'm back! Weee! Just a warning, this is still un-betaed, so forgive any mistakes that I've missed. Things are going to start moving faster from here.

Keep in mind as you read that Malfoy = the bad side of Draco created by the spell work, Draco = the actual man.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Everything you recognize does not belong to me. The rest is mine ^^.

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><p>Chapter Ten<p>

It was hard for Draco to decide how he felt. He knew Granger had been in his dreams, but he didn't feel angry. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be angry with her. Part of him had wanted her there with him last night. Maybe it was because she was the only one around and she had helped him, begrudgingly or not. She certainly hadn't killed him yet, but he wasn't entirely sure that was in his favor. He was sure that she confused him.

The only emotion that was clear to him was complete and utter confusion. What the hell was he supposed to remember and what the bloody hell had happened in his dream last night? The uncertainty he felt when he remembered his younger self caused something akin to fear, not that he truly feared anything. Not that he would admit to. It wasn't that his younger self was frightening really. It was how he had felt in the dream and what his sixteen year old self had said. He had felt so angry and murderous like he could never remember ever feeling before. Pure hatred had coursed through him, so much that it had caused him literal pain. Granger had seemed genuinely afraid of him and so had his younger self, although the latter was also just as angry as he was scared, if not more. Just thinking about the dream had trails of ice cold dread running down his spine. Something was wrong with him. He felt like something was missing. The key seemed to be somewhere in the fog of his forgotten memories, but his mind rebelled against him every time he had tried to push past the mist and explore. There was something behind it that honestly almost terrified him. Granger's reaction alone was enough to make him at least wary of what he had been forced to forget.

Draco dragged himself slowly up the bed to rest against the headboard. His head was on fire. Half of him hoped Granger would come in with more pain potions, but most of him hoped she would just leave him alone. It was quickly becoming more than he cared to handle. The more confused and afraid he felt, the more angry he got. He was angry that he was stuck in his room, stuck in his bed. He was angry because he could be. He was angry because it was the only emotion he felt that didn't hurt.

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><p>Hermione stared at her ceiling and watched as the sunlight played with the shadows. Her time with Harry and been wonderful, but she wanted to avoid reality for just a bit longer. There was so much to process and she wasn't in the mood to jump back into research when she knew there was no way she would be able to focus at the moment. And so she brooded. At least until the very inconvenient and more that slightly uncomfortable rumbling of her stomach began to disturb her thoughts. After all, it was extremely difficult to mope when your stomach was demanding food like a spoiled little child.<p>

Since her food wasn't going to magically appear, due to the rather unfortunate natural laws of the wizarding universe, Hermione dragged herself up and left her room facing the dreary options of cooking or dying of starvation.

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><p>An hour later Hermione was levitating a rather large tray of food out in front of her and quickly regretting the decision to do something nice for Malfoy as the teasing scent of her spinach and tomato omelet only encouraged the now all out rebellion currently waging in her stomach. And besides, she could never really be sure of what kind of mood the man would be in seeing as Malfoy was just as surly as he had been in school.<p>

Hermione paused in front of his door, half of her just wanting to march into her room with her delicious brunch and forget all about the jerk. But a faint noise caught her attention. Leaning into the door, Hermione strained her ears listening for anything else out of the ordinary. For the space of a couple of heartbeats there was silence, but a resounding rash and a dull thud like the falling of a body had her blasting through the door, food now very much forgotten.

She swiftly entered the room, wand at the ready, a million scenarios rushing through her head at warp speed. Hermione stopped about five feet from the door and surveyed the surroundings. Feathers were floating through the air and she would have thought it strange if it were not for the gigantic, scorched whole gracing the middle of the bed at the far end of the room. The bed where she had last seen Malfoy. Her heart skipped a beat and she scanned the room frantically searching for his attacker.

Her eyes landed on two figures in the sitting area of his ridiculously large suite and her mind jerked to a halt. Of all the scenarios she had envisioned, this was certainly not one of them. Falling back on her old childhood habit for banishing the boogie monsters of the night, she blinked. She blinked again, but the scene before her didn't change and the monster didn't disappear. There were two of Malfoy, just like there had been in his dream. Unfortunately, this was all too real and where there had been a sixteen year old Draco, there was now the malicious Malfoy that had haunted her dreams. He was standing over Draco's prone body, wand trained on his chest and a spell on his lips.

"No!" she screamed, interrupting whatever spell he was about to cast. Hermione froze as he turned slowly, gracefully to face her. His features were contorted into a frighteningly cold smilk.

"Hermione," he practically purred. Her name coming from his mouth turned her stomach. "Always barging in where you aren't wanted, you nosy little Mudblood chit." His voice was even and disinterested, despite his words and his stance relaxed to match his tone. His clear dismissal of her was infuriating. Her hand gripped her wand so hard that her knuckles protested under the strain.

"I suppose you're wondering how I'm here," he continued. The smirk now a full-blown grin deserving of the cheshire cat as he began to stalk smoothly towards her.

"This pathetic one," he punctuated with a sharp kick at Draco's ribs. Hermione flinched as she heard bone crack, but Draco didn't so much as twitch. Her healer senses had her more than a little alarmed. "The poor thing never knew how deep he was in this shit. Always going along, doing what he's told. He never even questioned when Father called us into his study that day. He never did that except to dole out punishment."

"Cut the crap," Hermione snapped. "You aren't making any sense and I don't really care how you got here. What do you want?"

Malfoy threw back his head and laughed. The sound was tinged with with bitterness. It was a sinister sound, as crazed as his Aunt's and been. The reminder had the scar on her arm itching like it was still healing and not nearly eight years old. In some ways it would always be fresh.

"He was a good little tool and has now served his purpose. Granted your appearance triggered the change a little earlier than we had planned, but a good leader rolls with the tides, right? He might have lived a little longer had you not been so bloody nosy. I am what you can call a fail-safe. Draco here has outlived his usefulness and is now a liability. A mess. And we always clean up our messes," he finished with a wink.

Hermione automatically took a step back and trained her wand on his heart.

"Who are you," she asked levelly. "I know you aren't Draco!"

"Draco? Oh, I am very much the Draco Malfoy that you had the distinct pleasure of getting to know over the past couple of months. Or rather, should I say that the Draco Malfoy you knew was me? I most certainly not the pathetic waste of flesh over there. Confused, little professor?" he chuckled again, a sound that sent shivers down her. "Young Draco served me well and prove to be quite…malleable. You see, I needed a front man until I was ready to take over and reveal myself. And once he is out of the way, the real show can start! He was a loose end and so are you," he said with a shrug. Hermione's heart fell into her stomach as she turned her attention to Draco.

"Did you kill him?"

"Not yet," he chuckled. "But you should really be worried about yourself right about now." And he came to a halt a few feet in front of her. He hadn't even raised his wand, but she knew better than to think he was as relaxed as he wanted her to believe. They both stood there for a moment, silently assessing each other watching for a sign, a twitch.

And there it was. Hermione quickly fired an Expelliarmus and Protego to block the spell that was already careening towards her. The room erupted in a shower of colored lights as hexes and spells were shot off and deflected all over the room. Belatedly she realized that any number of the stray spells could hit Draco, so she began to push firing more aggressive spells as fast as she could until Malfoy was staggering across the room and away from Draco.

As soon as she was close enough to Draco, she cast a shield as well as a stasis spell. He might not be dead, but there was no telling what Malfoy did to him. The stasis spell would keep him alive until she could get back to him. Malfoy laughter anther when he saw the glowing green and blue shell that formed over his wounded counterpart.

"You know, you should really be worried about yourself, Granger. I don't like having to repeat myself," he taunted as he sent a particularly nasty hex her way. She edged as quickly as she could, but she hissed in pain as it grazed her shoulder, leaving her skin on fire.

Hermione bit back the pain and refused to rise to his taunting. Instead she switched to using the more nasty spells she knew, especially because now she didn't have to worry about hitting Draco. She cheered to herself as she successfully wiped the smirk off of his face, she refused to hold back, convinced that this man in front of her was not an actually piece of Draco and she was more than tired of fighting.

As she pushed him further back, they ended up in the small hallway between their rooms. It was closed and the spells so bright that is was hard to see Malfoy down at the hall. She felt cramped and claustrophobic as she was forced to up her defense seeing that she could no longer dodge as well. No sooner had she blocked a hex then she saw a well timed Avada closing in behind it. At the last moment she threw herself down than and just felt the air above her back disturbed as the green light careened over her head and absorbed into the far wall. When she looked up, the hall was empty. Silently she crept down the hall towards the stairs. There was only one way Malfoy could have gone. Hermione climbed up the stairs as quickly and as silently as she could, not wanting to get caught on the tight winding staircase. Luckily, there was still no sight of him at the top.

Moving down the hallway, she cracked open doors and quickly cleared room after room until she reached to potions lab. Sending a prayer to the Heaven that he wouldn't be in there, she kicked open the door. Hermione barely had time to duck out of the way of another Avada and she cursed under her breath as she dove out of the way. The last thing she needed was an all out duel in a room of who knew what kind of dangerous substances. But duel she did. Brightly colored spells lit up the multi-colored vials and jars causing an eye dazzling splay of a light show across the room. It was hard to see the spells and determine where they came from, so she resorted to guessing. She couldn't hear his voice over the noise and she couldn't see him through the lights.

She heard the whining of an oncoming spell and dove out of the way only for it to crash into one of the potions cases to Hermione's behind her. There was a thunderous noise and Hermione's eyes were blinded in a white flash. Her body erupted in pain across her ribs, hip, and spine as her body was slammed by the force of the explosion into a potions table. She blinked away tears and gasped for breath, her ears rang in the aftermath. Gritting her teeth against the pain, Hermione pushed her battered body up and gripped her wand. This had gone on quite long enough. Now she was truly pissed off.

Using the table as cover, she scanned the room. There was a flash of white-blond hair over near the end of the lab and she immediately started firing off spells. This time the flight didn't last nearly as long considering she didn't give Malfoy enough time to fire off another smart remark. Within no time he was pinned to the ground, immobilized, and tied as securely as she could with the ropes she conjured. Kneeling beside his prone body, she brought her face close to hers. Her fury reflecting off his eyes as he glared at her.

"I don't give a damn who you are, but I hope you're watching. I will come for you and I will kill you." Standing up swiftly before he would have the chance to speak, Hermione fired off a quick spell that disintegrated the clone to ash. She knew that probably wasn't the smartest move considering she didn't know how it was connected to Draco, but she was pissed and it had felt good.

Without a backwards glance, she began sent a cleaning spell over the room and gathered as many unharmed healing potions as she could find and fit in her arms. Sifting through her pile, she took the strongest pain potion she could find and quickly healed her broken ribs. Hermione gasped in pain as the bones re-set themselves and waited, propped up against a wall, for the potion to set in. When she could move again, she stumbled down the stairs and back to Draco. With a wave of her wand she dissolved the barrier around him and got to work. Panic ripped at her throat as she breathed raggedly. Draco was the only person with the information they needed to bring this bloodshed to a permanent end. And as loath as she was to admit it, he din't deserve to die if everything she had gathered about the spell on his mind was true.

Time seemed to stand still as she muttered diagnostic spells, healing and administering potions as she went. When his breathing leveled and his wounds had closed she rocked back on her heels and allowed herself to really look at him. There was blood everywhere and his pale skin was becoming visible as the bruising receded and healed. The blood she cleaned with a quick spell and with another quick flick of her wand he was changed into clean clothes. Hermione levitated him across the hall to her bed, not having the energy to repair his, and made sure he was settled before stumbling to the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face, washing the blood away, and stared into her reflection as silent tears mixed with the water. If she had thought she had reached her breaking point before, this certainly wasn't helping.

With a derisive laugh, she swiped fiercely at her wet cheeks. Hermione was done letting herself feel pathetic. She knew she was no help to anyone like this. So she stomped her way over to the shower and scrubbed the blood and dirt off her skin. The time for feeling sorry for herself was over.

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><p>A.N. So here we are. The real fun is about to start and there with be some interesting Dramione interactions from now on. It was slow in coming, but it will be worth it. Tell me what you think!<p>

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and reviewed, followed, and alerted this story. And a huge thank you to Glorioux for continuing to support me. I owe you all some amazing gluten-free cupcakes.

Oh! And the next chapter will be up in a couple of days as a gift to my readers.

xoxo

Summer Orchid


	10. Memories

A.N. Here ya go! The next chapter two days later, as promised ^^. See I can keep my promises!

Once again, I still don't have a beta, so have mercy on me. If you would like to beta for this story please send me a PM and I will probably love you forever.

Alright there is some Dramione in this chapter. See? Another promise I kept. Aren't you proud?

Disclaimer: Mine. My precious...Just kidding. Recognizable stuffs are not mine.

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><p>Chapter Eleven<p>

Refreshed and strengthened after her shower and pep talk, Hermione threw one of the outfits she had configured from the sheets she had found tucked away and checked on Draco. He looked almost boyish laid out of her bed, but he looked to still be stable, so she busied herself with cleaning up the wreckage from the fight as best she could. The potions lab was worse off compared to Draco's room and seemed like the best starting point considering she had plenty of guest rooms to choose from to sleep in so hers would be fine in hers for a while.

The lab was absolutely obliterated. Even the long tables that were anchored to the floor were in shambles. Luckily most of the potion and ingredient cabinets were untouched for the most part. There could have been worse things than an explosion if their errant spells had hit any one of the shelves. Hermione set a timer on her wand to remind herself to eat and check on Draco again. Cleaning had always been cathartic to her, so she knew it would be easy to lose the entire rest of the day in the lab.

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><p>The obnoxious whining of her wand pulled Hermione out of her task as she finished restoring last of the tables. She had already cleaned away the debris and repaired all of the scorch marks. All that was left to be done was to repair all of the tools and cauldrons that had been damaged.<p>

Hermione dusted her hands off on her pants and headed off to check on her sleeping patient. At least he should still be sleeping after all the potions she had given him. Hermione opened the door and was halfway across her room before she realized the spot where she had left him was once again unoccupied. The sheets were tangled and tossed carelessly at the end of the bed and Draco was no where to be seen. Frantically, she began scanning for any sign of him, even going as far as looking under the bed itself.

"Draco," she yelled as she searched. "Draco, you shouldn't be…." she trailed of as she finally caught sight of him. In the far corner of the room beside, and partially hidden by, an ornate vanity, Draco was sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest. His arms rested on his knees as he stared out into space.

Hermione stopped in her tracks and stared at the tears that streamed down his face. Even though she knew he was twenty-five, barely younger than herself, Hermione had never seen him look more like a child and it freaked her out more than a little. With their history together, she was not used to seeing him so vulnerable.

Hermione crept over to him cautiously, not wanting to startle him, and knelt facing him. He didn't blink, flinch away, or even acknowledge her when she stretched out a hand and touched his arm.

"Draco," she said softly. "What happened?"

No response. He continued to stare at some lost point over her shoulder, but the tears had stopped. That was enough of a sign for her that he at least knew she was there. She shook him a little trying to bring him out of whatever trance he was in.

"Come back. I need you to tell me what happened, Draco." As soon as his name left her mouth, his eyes snapped to hers.

"You…," he stopped to clear his throat, his voice raspy. "You called me Draco."

"That's your name."

"What happened to Malfoy?" He stared at her, eyes wide with curiosity. She could still see vestiges of fear in his silver eyes.

"I killed him," she replied plainly. She offered no further explanation, blatantly skirting around the answer she knew he was looking for. But she knew Draco understood who she was referring to.

He didn't say anything for a moment, just stared in to her eyes as if he could find all the answers within their dark depths. Finally he spoke up again, his voice small.

"Did…did I really do all of that?" Hermione's heart dropped into her stomach. For all the times she had wished his memories would return, she hadn't really wanted to face this part.

"Hermione, did I do all of that," his voice gaining a bit more strength. "Is my mother dead? Did I really kill her? Did I torture you? What did I do? Why?" With each question his voice got louder, the panic clearer and clearer until he was fisting his hair with a white knuckled grip. A look of pure panic contorted his face and she could see the tears that were fighting to break free again.

"Draco!" Hermione cut him off and gripped his arms, forcing him to look at her again. She opened her mouth to speak again, but the words were stuck in her throat as she felt a strong tug on her mind.

Suddenly she wasn't staring at Draco, but standing in the middle of a lavish oval shaped room. There was a small canopy bed in the center, large enough for a child, and random toys spill across the room. On one end of the space sat a small toddler with white-blond hair playing with a miniature Quidditch set. There was no doubt in her mind that this was Draco and she had somehow managed to find herself in his memories.

Hermione had no sooner allowed herself to admit how cute Draco was as a child then the door to the nursery slammed open and in strode a much younger, but just as lethal looking Bellatrix LeStrange. The little boy stilled with a guilty look on his face and scrambled to stand with an unnatural stillness for a child of his age. Before she even knew what was happening Bellatrix lifted her arm and backhanded Draco across the face with such force that he fell over.

"Look at this mess you've made, you worthless child," Bellatrix spat out viciously. "You were sent in here as punishment and I find you playing!"

The memory shifted just as Hermione saw the madwoman lift her hand again and she was taken through countless beatings that Draco had suffered at his aunt's hand as part of his "grooming." Lucius taught him the majority of what he knew of the world in regards to hatred of Muggles and how Draco should carry himself as befitting his station, but he had never punished him. In fact, he had been a wonderful father in his youth. Maybe he wasn't as warm as father could have bee, but how much did you really expect of a man like Lucius. All of Draco's darker education was carried out in secret by Bellatrix. She always healed him afterwords and threatened him against telling his parents. His demented aunt taught him how to withstand pain with countless unforgivables and various other unseemly methods. For a long time he never fought back. That was until his first summer break after Hogwarts. He had come home protesting against everything his father had taught him about Muggle-borns and how they couldn't be all that different from them if Draco himself could be beaten by one. He never knew how Bellatrix had found out about that, but she had decided to increase his punishment since he obviously wasn't responding to her methods. So Bellatrix hit him were it would hurt the most.

Bellatrix Imperiused Lucius to dole out punishment under her control and eleven year old Draco had been tortured so badly that a nearly hysterical Narcissa had to call for a healer from St. Mungo's. Things had only gotten worse as the years went by and whispers of Voldemort's return increased. And then he was back. Draco was always under constant scrutiny as Voldemort had singled him out as the leader for the next generation of Death Eaters.

When Draco had failed to kill Dumbledore, Draco learned the true meaning of Hell. The Dark Lord used him as his favorite test dummy, never hesitating to use him as an example for what happened when one of his followers failed him.

And then he was gone. Voldemort and Bellatrix were both gone and Draco and his parents were left to pick up the pieces of their lives. Lucius was released from the curse after his sister-in-law's death and when they got home after the conclusion of the Battle of Hogwarts, it was the first time Draco had seen his father cry. No matter how he came across to the rest of the world, Lucius loved his son more than anything aside from Narcissa and it had nearly broken him to torture Draco.

But what had really broken the head of Malfoy house had come two years after the final battle. Evil had shadowed their doorstep once again and Voldemort's most loyal follower had come to collect a debt. Draco was always meant to be the face of the new dark regime and in the event that he was defeated, Voldemort had set up a plan to ensure the fight carried on.

One day when Lucius was off on a business trip, everything changed. Hermione watched on as Bellatrix, together with a few of Voldemort's old followers who had escaped capture, stormed the manor. Her now stark white hair flowed around her and she looked like the icy version of Medusa. In short order, Draco and his mother were rounded up and Narcissa was forced to watch on as her son was turned into the monster the wizarding world had come to fear. The very first thing Bellatrix had seen too was forcing the new and "improved" Draco to kill his mother.

Narcissa had not begged, had not cried, but simply met her son's stormy eyes.

"I forgive you, Draco." And then she was gone. Hermione's heart wrenched painfully for him as the events of the last six years flashed quickly in front of her in a blur of violence, blood, and chaos. All the while, that good part of Draco was forced to watch on until he managed to break free of the spell enough to escape with Hermione.

She wrenched herself from his mind with a gasp, trying to calm her breath as everything sank in. Granted, Draco had been nasty to her as a child, but she knew that none of it was his doing. She pulled him into her arms as he sobbed. He cried over the loss of his mother, the strain of the years, and the loss of his innocence. Although she would never admit it, his tears were not the only ones to soak her shirt. There was no way she would be able to hate him now. But she had no clue where that left them.

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><p>Draco woke with a pounding headache and swore as he remembered what had happened as he lifted his head from Hermione's shoulder. She had held him until the two had fallen asleep on the floor leaning up against her vanity. Suffocating waves of emotion came crashing in on him again. Draco choked back the bile rising in his throat and stumbled as quickly as he could to the bathroom before emptying the contents of his stomach.<p>

Somewhere in the middle of this, he felt a cool hand pulling his long hair away from his face and another rub soothing circles on his back as he continued to dry heave after there was nothing left. hermione helped him wash out his mouth and get into bed. She didn't say anything and he just stared at her as she settled him into bed. For some reason he was fascinated by the faint speckling of freckles across her cheeks and nose.

"Why are you helping me," he asked her evenly. She gave a noncommittal shrug and he felt his temper rise.

"I don't deserve your help or want your pity! You should have let me die. Why are you helping me? And don't even try to feed me that tripe about needing information. If that was all you cared about you would have taken it the moment you found out my memories were back and you would have left. Why Hermione? You should hate me." By the time he finished his rant, he was truly pissed. It was beyond him why the girl that had made him question his beliefs as a child and had been tortured horribly at this hand was now helping him. The silence was heavy as he waited for her to say something. Anything. And even when she did, he still didn't know what to do.

"I'm helping you because I'm here, Draco. I don't pity you and I don't hate you. You didn't deserve what happened to you and right now, you need me." With that she walked to the door, but before she shut it, she turned back to him with a small smile.

"The dream catcher above you is enchanted to keep away bad dreams. you should be able to rest here." She pulled the door closed behind her leaving Draco alone with his thoughts.

ooooooo

Hermione sighed with relief against Harry's chest. He had seen her exhaustion as soon as she had arrived in his dreams and pulled her into a hug. He led her into the sitting room of Grimmauld Place and waited until they had settled to speak.

"So. Hermione, what happened this time? Are you ok?

"I don't know, Harry," she sighed again. "I know I'm meeting you early, but the universe decided I didn't deserve peace when I got back. Something….strange happened."

Harry perked up a bit when she paused and didn't go on.

"Should I be bracing myself," he asked as he nudged her with his elbow. Hermione laughed a bit, but her smile never reached her eyes and faded quickly.

"I know who's behind everything. And, Harry, you aren't going to like it."

"Who? You're killing me here," he said stiffly, pulling away from her so he could look into her eyes.

"Bellatrix LeStrange."

And true to form, Harry blew up. He jumped up from the couch and started pacing and throwing his arms about as he ranted, incredulous that the crazy woman had somehow managed to survive Mrs. Weasley's spell work all those years ago.

"Harry," she called only to be ignored. "Harry James Potter!" This time he stopped and glared at her for interrupting his tirade.

"Thank you. Now please come sit down and let me explain."

Harry looked altogether displeased, but with a bit more coaxing he sad down and listened crossly as Hermione explained everything to him.

"Harry, I don't even know how Draco managed to survive his childhood! Lucius just turned off after Malfoy killed Narcissa. Draco and I don't even know if his father is aware of what Bellatrix did to him, or if he's even alive. This is all so wrong!"

She put her head in her hands and Harry was quick to put his arms around her.

"How could he have hidden that from everyone? Were there signs that we missed?"

"Stop, Hermione. This really isn't any of our faults. We were children, for crying out loud. And Malfoy was truly a prick to us. There is no way we could have seen it, so get that out of your stubborn little head, okay?"

"It was just so hard to watch, even from his memories. He had no one there for him, to keep him from being brainwashed, or to save him from being changed."

Harry stroked her hair as she spoke into her knees.

"As much as I hate to say it, you're there now, Hermione."

Her head shot up and she looked into his eyes to see if he was being serious.

"Don't be so shocked. I know that you and Malfoy were secretly friends for the whole of first year. Ron and I used to try and steal your notes. I happened to find the two of you together a couple of times."

Hermione just shook her head. First year had not been a good time for Harry, Ron, and herself until the Troll incident, so she and Draco had formed a tentative friendship. They both enjoyed being around someone who shared the same intelligence levels for once. Heavens only knew why Harry had never brought up her secret friendship, but who really knew what went through boys heads.

"Well, in any case, Harry we can't stay in that house forever. It should be safe, but I think I will go spare one of these days. And waiting until night to communicate with you is not always going to be an option."

"I agree, but what choice do we have?"

"I'm not sure," she shrugged, "but I'll talk to Draco about it when I get back."

"Alright. In the meantime I think it's time for me to meet with Kingsley. I think he'll agree with me in that this needs to be kept under wraps for as long as possible. No one's going to believe Malfoy, and I'm not a hundred percent sure that I do either. Right now the two of you are in the safest place. As minister, he should be able to help me decide to go from here."

Hermione hung her head again. She knew he was right, but she was getting stir crazy.

"Fine. I'll be off then. I need to get some rest. I never feel like I've really slept when I spend the night in your dreams."

Harry snickered at her word usage and earned himself a hard smack on the chest. Hermione stood and gave him a haughty look, hands on her hips.

"You know very well what I meant, Harry James Potter."

His snicker grew to a full on laugh.

"The trouble name twice in one night? You're certainly feeling better."

All he got in response was a dainty sniff as she walked towards the kitchen.

"Oh, and Hermione," he called to her retreating back. "I noticed that it's Draco now? Any particular reason why?"

Hermione turned and tilted her head to the side as she looked for an answer.

"He's not that Malfoy anymore, you know?"

And he did. He understood very well. The Malfoy they knew was nothing more than ash.

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><p>A.N. Well here we are. I took some liberties and deviated from canon, but we'll chalk it up to poetic license, ok? Let me know what you think! I will be updating on a regular basis now seeing as the fates have granted me a wonderful burst of creativity and I am pretty dang far ahead.<p>

I would like to thank Glorioux, as always, for her encouragement. And a huge thank you to janjan2009 for sticking with me! I really appreciate your support. To all of you who followed and favorited this story, I didn't forget you! The next batch of gluten free cupcakes are in the oven as we speak.

Until next time ^^.

xoxo

Summer Orchid


	11. Recovery

A.N. OK! For everyone who has been reading this, chapters 1-7 have been re-vamped. I am at the end of planning the story and decided to add something in to the earlier chapters, so it would be a good idea to check out at least ch 1 and ch 4 at least.

For everyone else...Enjoy!

There is still no beta for this fic. Anyone wanna beta for me? Anyway, forgive any mistakes I didn't catch.

Disclaimer: I am not JKR. Nope. Everything that's not hers is mine.

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><p>Chapter Eleven<p>

Draco stared up at the web woven between the posts of the bed. The sunlight reflected off of the crystals and colored beads creating a show of lights on the ceiling that was dancing around the shadows of the dream catcher fibers. He felt numb. All of his memories of the past six years seemed like a nightmare that he couldn't wake up from. He wished they had never come back. The nagging feeling of something missing was a million times better than knowing what he had been forced to do. Now he truly understood what his father had gone through when he was released from Bellatrix's Imperius. Even though he knew his father hadn't meant to torture him, he had always kept a bit of hatred for the man. But now, he felt he could truly let it go once and for all.

He only hoped that when the time came, his father would be able to forgive him as well. Just thinking of his mother had him choking back tears. He had never been able to mourn his mother's death and now he felt like he didn't have the right. He was about to give into his misery when he heard the door to his room crack open. He thanked all the powers he could think of for Granger's interruption. The hurt was becoming too much to allow himself to feel anymore.

Draco tried to pull his sore body up against the headboard and found himself still frustratingly weak. He suppressed a groan as pain ripped through his back and ribs as he tried to sit up. Hermione rushed over to him and supported his back enough for him to move, albeit slowly, back resting on a neat stack of pillows.

Once he was settled, she sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, facing him. The bed was large enough that there was still a foot of space between the two of them.

"How are you feeling? Is there anything hurting?"

He didn't know what to make of her. After everything he had done to her, she should hate him. Hell, he hated himself at the moment.

"We were friends once, Draco. I saw everything and I know that you didn't want to do any of those vile things."

Draco snorted derisively and turned away from her.

"You know, I really hated you growing up. I blamed you for what my aunt made Father do to me for all those years." He expected her to blow up and get defensive. After all, he was the one that decided to continue their secret friendship in first year even though he knew he would likely be punished. He just hadn't counted on it coming from the hands of his father.

She shook her head slowly, a sad expression on her face.

"And I hated you too. I couldn't understand why you hated me so much. Neither of us are completely innocent. We both said cruel things. But you were a just a child, Draco. We were children thrust into the middle of a war that we barely understood and somehow managed to find ourselves at the very front. I'm sorry for what our friendship cost you."

"No. After the war was over I had a lot of time to think. I let go of that ages ago. I know it wasn't your fault and never truly blamed you. When Bellatrix was torturing you…" he paused and shuddered. He saw Hermione do the same and grasp her branded forearm.

"When she did that to you I wanted so badly to set you free. I didn't care about your blood status. Your blood is as red as mine and I never wanted to see it or hear your screams ever again." His mind floated back to that not so long ago time when he had done much worse to her. He squeezed his eyes shut at the sudden wave of self-loathing. He had hoped that when Potter defeated Voldemort that he could finally become the good man he knew he could have been. Right now that goal felt further away than it ever was.

Draco's eyes snapped open when he felt a tentative hand on his own. He hadn't even realized he had balled his hands into fists until they began to relax under her touch.

"Draco, I don't hold that against you either," she said softly.

His heart skipped a beat and a small bead of warmth settled in his cold chest.

"You would forgive me," he asked in a small voice. "You don't hate me?"

"There isn't anything to forgive. You have to let that go as well. That part, that constructed part of you is dead. I killed him and that's what I think gave your memories back. That Malfoy isn't a part of you any longer. I hated him, not you, and you should do the same. You are not responsible for any of this."

Draco felt his eyes sting with the beginning of tears, but swallowed them back and turned away from her. He'd had enough of feeling weak. She was right. It wouldn't do a spot of good to be angry with himself. He had just been used, another casualty to a bloody war he never wanted a part in, and he would be damned if he let this crush him.

He turned back to her and saw her eyes widen slightly at his sudden movement.

"Hermione," he said firmly. "I want to help you."

For a couple of moments her mouth worked open and closed like a suffocating fish.

"Are you sure? Your injuries, they…"

"I'll do whatever it takes. Those blody bastards are going to pay for what they did to me and my family. My mother…She never believed in the war in the first place. She didn't deserve to die. Bellatrix," he spat scornfully, "will pay for what she did to her, to her own bloody sister! Will you help me train?"

Hermione seemed even more shocked by his request.

"Draco, we both need to recover a bit more before we start even thinking about training," she said warily, a ghost of a smile on her lips. Draco's determination faded a bit as guilt started to creep it's way back in.

"Stop. I'm not hurt from what you did. When you set me free from the dungeons, you healed all of my injuries."

"Then why do you need to heal," he challenged and watched as her grin grew into a smirk.

"Let's just say Malfoy packed quite the punch. But luckily for us, I've still got it." She twirled his wand proudly, her eyes sparkling with mischief, and Draco chuckled at her antics. He knew just how skillful he had been and he was thankful she referred to that part of him separately. It helped him put things into perspective.

"So how long before I can start training? And you do know I will need my wand. Where is yours?"

Hermione lowered his wand and lowered her eyes to her lap.

"It should take you another week to be able to walk around for any great period of time and another week to start working up to training. So about two weeks really."

"And the wand?"

"Snapped," she said so quietly he almost didn't catch it.

"Snapped?"

"Yes, Draco, snapped! Death Eaters snapped my wand before they took me to the dungeon. I felt it break like they cut off a part of me. I will have to figure out how to get another later and you will get yours when you are ready to train. I won't have you practicing before you are completely healed."

Draco winced. There was nothing worse than losing a wand to a wizard. Even though she claimed that nothing was his fault, he felt that being without his wand at the moment was just penance for now.

"Well," he grinned as if the mood hadn't just taken a severe nose dive. "It's a good thing I can do wandless magic!"

He snapped his fingers and all other furniture in the room except for the bed hovered about a foot into the air before settling back soundlessly. Hermione laughed in spite of herself.

"I'm glad to see that you're still a show off."

They both grinned at each other until Hermione's faltered for a second.

"Draco," she said, serious once again. "Do you remember much about your plans and attacks from when you were the Dark Lord?" Draco's smile fell as well.

"I remember everything and I can give you more than that."

"That's perfect," she bounced a bit. "That's brilliant, Draco! If we can give that information to Harry then he could…." Hermione trailed off when she caught the look on his face. "Come on, you really need to forget your crap with Harry. I've been talking to him and he's on our side."

"Wait. You've been talking to him? How? You can't send or receive owls here. No one can come or leave either. How are you talking to him? If one of the wards are down they can find us!" Draco started to sit up, his heart racing, and ignored the pain blossoming in his chest and ribs.

Hermione reached over and pushed him impatiently back against the pillows.

"Would you relax? Don't strain yourself. The wards of insanity are still perfectly in tact. You have absolutely crazy wards by the way and they are absolutely bloody infuriating!" She gave him a pained look and dragged a hand through her still very curly locks.

"Anyway," she huffed, "I found a spell in your library, which is just as crazy large as your wards are insufferable, that allows me to enter people's dreams. That's one of the reasons for the dreamcatcher above you."

Draco didn't need to ask what the other reasons were having had more than his fair share of rough nights. He relaxed knowing that all of his precautions were still in place.

"So he knows everything then," he said wearily. "How did he take it?"

"At first, well you know Harry. It's a very good thing that he wasn't able to track you down. Let's just leave it at that. But he understands now, like I do. He doesn't trust you completely yet, but he agreed with me that you deserve to be protected and are not responsible for everything that happened these last six years."

"Do you trust me, Hermione?"

"I don't know yet. Let me see who you really are without the pressure of your family or the influence of that spell and we'll go from there. I will tell you that I trusted the boy I befriended first year."

Draco studied his hands in his lap. He didn't really know why he cared all that much about having her trust.

"It's okay, Granger. I'm not even sure what kind of person I am underneath all of that. And frankly, I'm afraid that man is gone."

Hermione stretched a tentative hand to his again and squeezed lightly before puling away.

"Well, speaking of wards," she said cheerily ignoring Draco's eye roll at her mood switch. "You said there was no going in or out, but can you work it to where we can receive visitors? Please?"

"Unfortunately it will be just you and me for a while. A long time ago, I set up a ward that would not let anyone come or go if it detected that I was injured. We're stuck here alone until I'm well."

Hermione scoffed and looked at him like she knew exactly where he was in proximity to his rocker, and he wasn't on it.

"And how in the world do the wards know when you are better? And how much better do you have to be for them to deem you well?"

"Well, that's another downside really considering my current condition. You have to be at the same level of health as when you first set the wards. The problem is that I was in very good shape when I had this place built. It's already keyed to me, so I'm already being monitored. We will feel the wards shift when I am back to normal." Draco surprised another chuckle when she began muttering to herself about pompous Purebloods and their outrageous security systems.

"Oh stop being a drama queen, Granger. It won't take me that long to recover." He really did laugh when she glared at him through her cinnamon colored lashes.

"Really, Hermione. Two weeks are not that long to wait."

"It will only be two weeks if I shove potions down your throat three times a day, you insufferable git!"

"Oh, that's one I've never heard before," Draco said with a raised eyebrow. "I'll have to add that very original insult to my list of attributes."

Hermione rolled her eyes heavenward.

"Well I see there isn't much damage to that ego of yours."

"Of course not. I've got that part on lock down. But really, I'm feeling better already. I'm sure it will only be a matter of days before we can begin training."

"Hello! Earth to Malfoy. Healer here," she said pointing at her chest. "You may feel better after a few days, but you are going to be weaker after how long you've been in bed."

"Ah, but you're only a Professor of the Healing Arts."

The glare she sent his way was beyond frigid and he raised his hands in surrender.

"Ok, alright simmer down. I was only joking. I'm sure you're quite talented."

This time Hermione slapped him on one of the larger bruises on his leg, her face smug and chin held high.

"Ouch! Jeez, I thought you were a healer! That was cruel!"

"Oh suck it up you bit baby. Honestly, you call me the dramatic one. And I'll have you know that you would be in much worse shape if it were not for my 'talents.'"

Draco immediately simmered down and his smile faded.

"I know," he said softly. "And you have my gratitude. It was more than I deserved."

Hermione looked decidedly uncomfortable for a moment before she perked pack up.

"Well if you're going to get any better, we'd might as well start now with your recovery program."

Draco's face lit up.

"Are you going to let me get up?"

"Nope," Hermione said, pure mischief shining in her eyes. "I'm going to give you as many foul tasting healing potions as I can find and put you to sleep. The more you rest, the faster you will heal."

She finished with a wink and burst into laugher when she saw the scowl on the poor man's face. He had always been a pathetic patient during their school days, so she might as well get some entertainment out of teasing him as much as possible.

"You really have grown to be quite ruthless, Granger."

Hermione merely flipped her waist length curls over her shoulder and grinned.

"Oh, don't worry. I'll be sure to give you plenty of chocolate before you pass out to clear the taste."

Teaching alongside Madam Pomphrey had rubbed off on her for sure. Draco's soft chuckling followed her out of the room.

* * *

><p>Two days later, things seemed to take a step or three backwards. After their last conversation, an air of awkwardness seemed to settle over them. Neither knew what to say to the other, so they fell into an uncomfortable, silent routine. Three times a day Hermione brought him a meal with a side of "let's see how many disgusting substances Draco can swallow without gagging." The only benefit was that she always fulfilled her promise of bringing him chocolate and her cooking was always excellent. He was eternally grateful that he had thought to have the house elves from the Manor automatically stock the shelves any time he was there. And who would have thought that the feminist wonder would know how to cook so well? He knew if he ever said that out loud he would be in for the beat down of the century, so he kept that to his very amused self.<p>

She never stayed and ate with him, just coming in with food and medicine and coming back later to collect the mess, always leaving the faint smell of ink, parchment, and roses in her wake. He had no idea what she was working on, but it was clear she spent most of her time in his library considering the ink stains that always graced her fingertips.

Everything passed by so slowly to Draco and their routine added to the monotony. However, on the third night something was different. When Hermione came back to collect his dinner tray, she hovered a little bit before giving him his next lovely dosage of potions. Draco opened his mouth to speak, uncomfortable as she shifted her weight from foot to foot, but she beat him to it.

"Would you like to get some exercise tonight? I've been monitoring your progress and it should be okay for you to get out of bed and walk around for a little bit. And I'm sure you're tired of seeing the inside of this room."

"Yes! I have been waiting for days for those beautiful words! Sweet freedom!"

Hermione laughed at his dramatics before kicking open the door, tray occupying her hands.

"Ok, then when I get back we'll take a walk around."

Draco didn't want to wait. He felt positively bounding with energy, like he could run ten miles without stopping. He was beyond tired of being in bed and was ready to feel like a regular human being. Pushing himself into a sitting position, he decided to get a head start and tried to use the post of the bed as leverage to get out of bed. And that was how Hermione found him.

"Draco, what are you doing," she asked exasperated as she rushed to his side. He grinned at her obvious display of concern about his well-being.

"You do know that I manage to make it way over there to the toilet and back without your help all the time, yes?"

Hermione blushed, but recovered quickly and put her hands on her hips.

"Well, we'll see just how far you can get today. More than likely you're going to need my help, so just go ahead and get aquainted with the idea. Are you always this stubborn?"

"Only on days that end with 'y,' dear nursemaid."

Hermione rolled her eyes and gestured grandly towards the door. She stayed no more than an arm's length away from him and watched as he tried to draw himself up and walk with his usual grace. To say that she was tempted to laugh would be a gross understatement, but she was mindful enough of his pride to keep silent.

When they got to the hallway she led him further away from the staircase to one of the spare bedrooms. She let him open the door and had to cover her mouth as she snickered when he froze just inside the door.

"Hermione, I know that up until yesterday my memory was faulty, but I am almost one-hundred percent sure that this room was never like this before."

"Of course not. This was just one of the many unnecccesary guest rooms in your secret hideout. You wanted to train, so I just provided the space and equipment."

She gave him a small shove, propelling him into the room that she had spent a good portion of the past three days constructing. When she wasn't holed up with her research or working on repairing Draco's master suite, she was busy expanding the room and adding the standard length running track that lined the room. In the middle was a dueling space and all of the work out machines she could think of transfiguring.

"Be prepared to spend a lot of time in here, Draco. I'm ready to see the face of another human being. Between being trapped in a cell and trapped in your house, the only person I've seen is you."

"Don't even act like you don't enjoy this face, Granger. And what about me? It isn't as if I've had secret visitors while you've been making a permanent home in my library."

"Oh yes! Do you even like people other than yourself?"

Draco scoffed loudly and nudged her shoulder as they started walking.

"I'll have you know that I am a very social person and I had a lot of friends back in school, thank you very much."

"Lackeys, Draco, do not constitute friends. Between Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy you were probably bored to tears and desperately trying to keep your brain from rotting from their mindless drivel."

"You know, I did have other friends. Real friends. Granted most of it was based off of self-preservation, but they were friends none the less."

"Ha! Name three!"

Hermione stuck her chin up haughtily and Draco matched her look for look as he ticked off on his fingers.

"Theo Nott, Daphne Greengrass, and Blaise Zabini."

"Really," she asked, head cocked to the side and eyes slightly narrowed. Not for the first time did she remind him of a bird.

"Yes, Hermione. Now stop mocking my social life. We were all quite close until sixth year."

Draco began to stumble as they rounded up their first lap. Hermione pulled one of his arms over her shoulders. He made no protests as she wrapped her arm around his waist and helped support his weight. If he wanted to keep going and he knew he could only do that with her help. Neither spoke for a while as they continued to walk.

About halfway through the second lap, Draco's knees nearly gave out and Hermione had to support most of his weight to keep him from falling. She might have been strong, but he was a good head and a half taller than her and a good deal more broad. He heard her suck in air through her teeth as she tried to steady him, but she didn't complain about the obvious pain.

"Hermione," he said a little sternly trying to catch her eyes. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine," she said with a small smile. "I got a little banged up in my fight with…him…and my ribs are giving me a bit of trouble still."

Draco jerked them both to a stop.

"You're still healing? Are you crazy? What are you doing helping me?"

Hermione nudged him impatiently, but he refused to budge.

"Honestly, Draco. They are healed for the most part. They were just hit with a dark spell, so they are healing more slowly. My ribs will be tender for a good bit of time. Besides, I need this exercise just as much as you do."

Draco gave her another look of disapproval, but began to walk again when it was clear Hermione wasn't going to say anything. So they continued on in silence. For how long, Draco didn't know. But he knew for sure it was not helping him work past the muscle fatigue. Unforgunately for him, he couldn't think of anything to talk about. Hermione seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

"So I've been thinking."

"Ah, the shocker of the century."

Hermione stuck her tongue out at him quite aware of how childish it made her look.

"Really though. Talking about your friends at school got me thinking. There isn't much that I really, truly know about you. I mean, I know that you're a Pureblood and you're good at potions. You love quidditch and even though you never beat Harry you were just as skilled, just not as reckless."

"Thanks," he snorted. "What else do you want to know?"

Hermione scrunched up her nose as she thought and Draco couldn't help but notice how adorable she was when she did it.

"I'm not sure. Anything really."

Draco hummed as he tried to think of something interesting.

"Well. When I was young I was absolutely terrified of flying."

This time Hermione stopped them. She threw her head back and laughed so hard that tears leaked from her eyes.

"Are you serious? You?"

"Keep laughing Granger. I only got over it when I was about eight and my father took me around on his broom doing crazy tricks until I stopped "screaming like a little girl," his words not mind, and realized how fun it was."

Draco smiled at the memory, but it soon faded.

"That was back when he was still allowed to be a good father."

Hermione gave him a look of sympathy that made him decidedly uncomfortable.

"So what about you? I know you're a Muggleborn, you read entirely too much not to need glasses already, and you are the only reason Weasley and Longbottom passed potions."

Hermione laughed. That was the truth for sure. Ron always failed at things he deemed too boring and poor Neville was just to clumsy when Snape was standing over him.

"For your information, I did need glasses. But I got a Muggle operation and they repaired my eyes."

"They can do that?"

He honestly didn't know very much about Muggle healing techniques, but he was shocked that they were so advanced. The wizarding world was still looking for a way to correct vision.

"Of course. And they can do loads more than that. So tell me something else about yourself."

And they continued in this fashion until Draco was forced to admit he was too tired to keep going. As they went to sleep, both Draco and Hermione couldn't help but wonder at the strangeness of a world where the two of them could get along so well.

* * *

><p>A.N. Thanks for reading! What do you think? I'm dying to know haha. Really though.<p>

Thank you to janjan2009 for your review! You're the best! And thank you to everyone who is following and favoriting! It gives me a lot of support ^^.

xoxo

Summer Orchid


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